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Document created: 04 May 2004
Air University Review,
July-August 1971
When the first caveman hit another with a rock, violence among humans was born. When the first caveman hit another man with a rock and then swung the rock menacingly against other persons in order to cow them, then terror as a weapon was born. Human violence today occupies a wide spectrum of real and potential activities. A barroom brawl is violence; so is nuclear warfare. Terror tactics make up a portion of the overall spectrum. Obviously the threat of a nuclear war—or the threat of a physical beating to an individual—can be viewed as forms of terror, but these lie within the broad, semantic meaning of the word. In a political context, terror tactics are acts of violence committed by a clandestine group, the psychological effects of which are expected to bolster the group’s cause and move it toward its objectives.
The basis of terror tactics is the threat—threat to a government that it must abandon power or face continued trouble and danger for its officials; threat to a population that they face constant disruption unless they help overthrow the government. A village chief is assassinated, and the threat of death discourages capable men from assuming the local leadership. A diplomat or an airliner is seized, and as a result political prisoners are released because of the threat to the lives of the hostages. The caveman is still swinging his rock.
Terrorism is a form of guerrilla warfare. The basic tactic for guerrilla warfare is to hit and run and hide, hit, run, hide. Guerrillas conceal themselves in mountainous or rural areas. Terror tactics are employed in urban as well as rural areas, and when carried out in cities and towns, they are often aptly referred to as “urban guerrilla warfare.” Like guerrilla warfare, terrorism is a hit, run, and hide form of conflict—combat by attrition, destruction of the prevailing authority being the hoped-for end result. Often, although not always, guerrilla warfare and urban clandestine activities are conducted simultaneously and are complementary to each other, as in Cuba in 1957-58, in Venezuela in the early sixties, and in Vietnam for over two decades.
Terror tactics are not a new weapon. One of the most famous acts of terrorism of this century was committed in the Austro- Hungarian town of Sarajevo on 28 June 1914: a double assassination of royalty which precipitated World War I. Abraham Lincoln was the victim of a terror plot hatched by a small group of Southern sympathizers who hoped to destroy the Union government. Fidel Castro was still a child when Cuba was immersed in a bloody clandestine struggle aimed at overthrowing the dictator of that period.
The modern complex, crowded, interrelated world appears to be exceptionally vulnerable to political terror tactics. Electronic communications bind the various countries and peoples closely together. When Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated in Sarajevo, the news reached Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm via an admiral on a launch who placed a piece of paper in a cigarette case and tossed it aboard Wilhelm’s yacht. President Nixon was flying aboard the presidential plane in the United States in September 1970 when a radio message crackled in to inform him that an American airliner had been blown up in far-off Cairo, Egypt, after having been hijacked.
Over today’s communications systems the reverberations of a terrorist act can travel far and fast. A diplomat is kidnapped in one country, and within minutes the foreign ministry of his own country receives the news and brings pressures to bear to secure his release. In 1904 a Moroccan bandit named Raisuli kidnapped an American named Perdicaris, but it was a month before President Theodore Roosevelt issued his famous ultimatum, “Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead.”
Delicately balanced international relationships are susceptible to acts of terror. Two bullets at Sarajevo shattered the peace of the world for four years. Airplane hijackings by Palestinian terrorists in September 1970 endangered a Middle East cease-fire that had been carefully worked out to prevent an eventual confrontation between the two super-powers, the United States and the Soviet Union.
Delicately constructed equipment is also highly vulnerable to acts of terror. A hammer can destroy a computer. A match can level an industrial plant. Within the space of a few weeks in 1970 the huge airliner in Cairo and a highly sophisticated research center in Madison, Wisconsin, were blown up by explosives placed by terrorists. One or two men can pulverize the accumulated work and knowledge of many researchers or scientists. It is easier to destroy than to build, and—tragically—as man builds ever more complex equipment, the ability to destroy remains relatively easy; and it is into this widening gap that terrorists have moved with devastating results. Once largely limited to killing people, the terrorist today has the whole wide field of technological development as his potential target. In order to further his scheme, the terrorist no longer needs an army or a guerrilla group; a fuse or a hammer will suffice. A harmless soft-drink bottle, with gasoline and a wick, becomes a Molotov cocktail that can wreck a home, destroy a factory, disrupt a communications network. Acts of sabotage can add to the intensity of a terror campaign, but in destroying material objectives their primary purpose is to inflict damage to the economy.
In considering types of action, one must not overlook the fact that sometimes more than one factor—not only the terror purpose—is involved in these deeds. The murder of village leaders may be the policy of a clandestine group; the person carrying out an actual killing may be acting out of personal revenge. The hijacking of airliners may be the policy of another group; an individual hijacker may be acting as much in search of “glory” as in compliance with orders. Furthermore, an act of violence may serve more than one purpose: when a village official is murdered, not only is authority destroyed but a terror effect is felt throughout the population, particularly among other officials and governmental adherents.
Variations in patterns of terror appear in different countries, depending on local circumstances:
· In Guatemala in 1968, with both rightist and leftist elements engaged in terror activities, revenge killings were a characteristic of the violence. Kidnappings for ransom became almost commonplace as terrorists favored this method for obtaining funds.
· In Uruguay in the late sixties, the Tupamaros, an extremist organization, first cultivated a Robin Hood image by such deeds as robbing a casino. This image, evoking laughter more than concern in the populace, enabled the Tupamaros to establish themselves as an operational and well-known organization. They then turned to more deadly activities, including the murder of a kidnapped American official.
· Terror in Vietnam in the late fifties was largely selective (e.g., the killing of village chiefs). Later it was expanded to include general targets (e.g., a mine placed in a road to catch any passing vehicle). The wider scope was given to terrorism as the Viet Cong increased their efforts to bring down the South Vietnamese government.
· The Cuban revolution of the late fifties was a classic instance of a clandestine struggle linked with guerrilla combat. Fidel Castro led the rebel guerrillas and became the popular symbol of the revolution. In the cities and towns, however, the underground also waged its battle against the government. Significantly, more rebel died in the cities than in the hills. The underground engaged in numerous terrorist activities, with varying degrees of success. There were some assassination attempts (few succeeded) and a good many acts of sabotage. Bombs were their most potent weapon; they exploded in stores, theaters, night clubs, and on the streets. The bombs served several purposes: loud blasts demonstrated to one and all, friend and foe, that the rebel underground existed and was highly active. The bombs encouraged the population, which was largely antigovernment, and helped to demoralize the government forces, aware that the enemy was present and dangerous. In May of 1957 a mighty explosion destroyed a section of a vital electrical conduit in Havana, blacking out part of the city for more than two days. In November of the same year residents of Havana thought they had come under bombardment when some forty bombs exploded in different places within a fifteen-minute period. As these and other terrorist acts were carried out, commerce slowed, investment capital dried up, tourism came to a halt, and the decline in the economy became a major factor in eventually bringing down the government.
Terrorists everywhere have confronted the question: Does terrorism in the long run do more harm than good, turning a population against the cause espoused by the terrorists? The Cuban underground, operating within a population that was basically sympathetic, sought to solve this problem by not using any metal in at least some of its bombs. This minimized casualties because flying metal fragments do the most harm to humans, not the explosion itself if it is limited in potency. The bombs were exploded primarily for their psychological effects, not to kill or maim. There were some casualties, but these were relatively few compared to the large numbers of civilians killed or wounded by Viet Cong explosions, the primary purpose of which is precisely to kill and wound.
The Cuban revolution was the incubator for two terror methods that have now come into international use: hijacking of aircraft and kidnapping of people for political purposes. The rebel 26 of July Movement was probably the first organization to carry out hijackings for political reasons. A number of domestic flights and one international flight were seized by hijackers, who thus sought to disrupt the country’s communications system and demonstrate the ability of the rebels to strike appreciable blows.
In February 1958 Juan Manuel Fangio, then world auto-racing champion, was in Havana to participate in a race. Members of the rebel underground seized Fangio in the lobby of a downtown hotel, spirited him off, and held him for several days, finally releasing him unharmed. No demands were made; the kidnapping in itself served the rebels’ purpose by bringing them worldwide publicity and demonstrating their capability for action within a city that was thought of as a government stronghold.
Four months later the rebels staged an even more spectacular kidnapping. Guerrillas led by Raúl Castro had occupied a portion of easternmost Cuba, but there they were being harassed by the government’s aircraft. In an effort to obtain a breathing spell, the rebels seized 48 Americans and 2 Canadians. The rebels knew the government was unlikely to bomb guerrilla-held areas as long as American citizens might be endangered. By means of this mass kidnapping the rebels achieved a number of objectives: they demonstrated their effective control of a portion of the national territory, forced a letup in the government’s air activity, and won de facto recognition of sorts from the United States when two American consuls came to negotiate the release of the prisoners.
The hijackings and kidnappings by the Cuban rebels were an ominous portent of the future use of these techniques by terrorist individuals or groups in other parts of the world. The hijacking of airliners reached a climax in September 1970 when Palestinian terrorists seized four airliners with some 599 passengers and crew within a period of four days (a fifth hijacking attempt was thwarted). All four of the seized planes were subsequently blown up.
Nowhere in the world in modern times has terror as a political weapon been used so extensively as the Communists have used it in South Vietnam. The terror tactic has ranked with the military tactic as a full-fledged component of the Communist drive to conquer that country. The Communist military commander, General Vo Nguyen Giap, stated bluntly:
At the price of their hard-won experiences, our compatriots in the South realized that the fundamental trend of imperialism and its lackeys is violence and war; that is why the most correct path to be followed by the peoples to liberate themselves is revolutionary violence and revolutionary war. [Italics are Giap’s.] This path conforms strictly to the ethics and the fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism on class struggle, on the state and the revolution. Only by revolutionary violence can the masses defeat aggressive imperialism and its lackeys and overthrow the reactionary administration to take power.1
So pervasive has terrorism become that one writer asserted that it “has long passed the stage of excess and become a vice, an intoxication with violence, one that may well be a release from the terrible and inhumanly prolonged hardships and repressions of personal interests which its adherents must undergo.”2
Terrorism may well be an emotional outlet for persons engaging in it. It has also served very real political purposes for the Communists in Vietnam. A study of Viet Cong terror tactics by the United States Mission in Vietnam enumerated five aims the Communists hope to accomplish by employing these methods:
1. Morale building within the Viet Cong ranks. A successful terrorist act does much to create an aura of invulnerability within a guerrilla band and helps bolster spirits throughout the insurgent organization.
. . .
2. Advertising the Viet Cong movement. . . .
3. Disorientation and psychological isolation of the individual. This is done by destroying the structure of authority which previously was a source of security. The particular target is
the Vietnamese villager. . . . Terror removes the underpinnings of the orderly system in which the villager lives out his life.
. . .
4. Elimination of opposing forces. . . . By means of terror the Viet Cong have sought to eliminate the entire leader class of Vietnamese
villagers. . . .
5. Provocation of the GVN [Government of South
Vietnam]. . . . Any government faced with terrorism must attempt to suppress the terrorists. Ideally, that suppression is by an orthodox use of law enforcement. But if the terrorist is effective and if the government sees itself in a crisis, it will almost inevitably use extra-ordinary repressive measures.3
As previously noted, the Communists have utilized both selective and general methods of terror in Vietnam. A selective target may be a village chief, a policeman, or an American official. A general target may be an audience in a theater or people crowding into a marketplace. In hitting a specific target, the terrorist strikes at the fabric of governmental control. In hitting a general target, he aims at the overall social fabric. Create chaos, the terrorist believes, and you open the way to seizing power.
The widespread Communist use of terror in Vietnam since 1957 has been fully documented in a considerable number of publications. Statistics related to events in Vietnam are often suspect, but they can serve as indicators. According to reports issued by the United States Mission to that country, assassinations in 1966 totalled 1732, rose to 3706 in 1967, and then to 6518 in 1968.4 The 1968 figure is totally inadequate, however, because it does not include deaths during the bloody Tet offensive. By 1969, with United States and South Vietnamese forces in greater control, assassinations dropped to 6075. (See accompanying table.)
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The Communists’ attack in 1968 enabled them to occupy most of Hue, the country’s second city. Later, once the city had been recaptured by government and American forces, it was discovered that the Communists had massacred a large number of people. The mass graves of victims were found around the city. The first discovery was made in the yard of a high school, where 170 bodies were recovered. In the months that followed more graves were found, and eventually some 2800 bodies in all were recovered. About 2000 more persons were missing, perhaps buried in graves that were not found.5
Douglas Pike, an expert on Vietnamese affairs, has categorized by phases the Communist rationale behind the killings: When they thought they would be able to hold the city for a short while, they killed in order to eliminate enemies and to weaken the structure of the establishment. When they thought they might be able to maintain their hold on the city, they killed in order to purge the old social order. And then when it became apparent they would lose the city, they sought to liquidate anyone who might later be able to identify Party members.6
General Giap’s statement that “violence and revolutionary war” conform “to the ethics and the fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism” means that Communists openly favor the use of violence and terror as a means to obtain political control. Rarely do they attempt to conceal their adherence to—often preference for—the use of force. The Communist Manifesto states bluntly: “They [the Communists] openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.”7 Karl Marx wrote in Das Kapital, “Force is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one,”8 and almost a century later Ernesto Guevara echoed Marx with the statement, “ . . . We should not fear violence, the midwife of new societies.”9 China’s Mao Tse-tung clearly set forth the Communist viewpoint on violence when he said, “Every communist must grasp the truth, ‘Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.’ ”10
Terrorist campaigns follow a pattern. At first there are sporadic activities, without much design. Usually these consist of occasional and scattered bombings and perhaps one or two assassination attempts. These actions are similar to the first tentative attacks that are carried out by a guerrilla group beginning operations in a rural area. If the army is unable to snuff out the guerrilla movement, it expands and becomes more active and dangerous. In urban areas, if a clandestine terrorist apparatus is not eliminated completely, it, too, may grow and become more sophisticated.
One indication of sophistication is the ability of a terror group to select and carry out attacks on selected targets. This frequently takes the form of attacks on police. Lenin once wrote, “The first objective [of armed struggle] is to kill individuals such as high officials and lower-ranking members of the police and army.”11 In South Vietnam the police have been a primary target of Viet Cong terrorists. Not only have individual policemen been shot, but even police headquarters have been attacked. In the Dominican Republic, at the time of the 1965 uprising, so many police were attacked and killed by terrorists in Santo Domingo that the police disappeared from the streets of the city. Police are a symbol of the existing order; they are also a major support of that order. To strike at the police is to deal psychological as well as real blows against the existing establishment.
In the United States, today troubled by terrorism for the first time in its history, terror tactics have reached the level of sophistication in which terrorists are leveling their guns at policemen with deadly effect. As of mid-September 1970, sixteen police officers have been killed in the year as the result of unprovoked attacks, more than double the total for the previous year and nearly four times the annual average for the past ten years.12
There are no simple, ready solutions to terrorist activities; there is no panacea for terrorism. Counterterror is not the answer; it is, in fact, counterproductive. Although limited gains may temporarily be achieved—such as deterring fainthearted individuals from joining a rebel group—in the long run counterterror will cause repugnance in a population, turning many persons against the authorities. Such was the case in Cuba in 1957 and 1958.
There are, however, techniques that have been applied, sometimes quite successfully, to particular aspects of terrorism. Cuba, during the aforementioned period, eliminated the problem of hijacking by requiring body searches of all passengers and by placing armed uniformed guards aboard planes. The guards were seated with the crew so that they could keep watchful eyes on the passengers through peepholes set in the doors separating the crew and passenger compartments. Modern electronic equipment is today an additional aid in detecting weapons and forestalling hijackings.
Good police techniques are the best method of beating terrorism, which is, after all, a form—a political variation—of crime. Infiltration of terrorist groups, money payments to informers—the same methods used against criminal gangs—are feasible against terror groups. A detailed file, kept up to date—computerized if possible—of all persons suspected of being engaged in clandestine activities can be most helpful, just as files on criminals aid police in crime detection. In one case in a Latin American city, files on possible terrorists were combed, and over thirty suspects were brought in for interrogation. Of the persons questioned, only one was found to be engaged in terrorist activities, but when he told the authorities what he knew, they were able to break up a significant portion of an underground network.
Terrorist groups must obtain weapons and explosives in order to carry out their work. Strict controls over the sale and distribution of these can make the tasks of terrorists more difficult and sometimes can enable police to trace the purchasers of weapons used in acts of terror.
While police officers are often the targets of terrorists, by being cautious in situations that are potentially dangerous, they can reduce their risk. Policemen working in pairs are more difficult targets to attack: terrorists must either kill both policemen or chance being killed themselves. If two policemen keep a suitable distance between them when they approach or are approached by a questionable individual, that individual will find it almost impossible to kill them both at the same moment.
Security at public buildings, including theaters, can be enhanced if all packages, including women’s purses, are subjected to scrutiny at entrances. A stick of dynamite can, of course, be smuggled in under a person’s clothing, and it may not be feasible to search every individual fully. Searches of packages and purses, however, will at least decrease the possibility of bombs being smuggled into a building, and certainly will eliminate the possibility of any sizable explosive artifact being smuggled in.
The cities of South Vietnam have long been troubled by terror campaigns. In order to lessen the casualties and damage inflicted by terrorists, a number of steps have been taken by the authorities:
· Government agents infiltrate the Viet Cong clandestine apparatus. This is one of the most effective methods of keeping track of terrorist activities, sometimes forestalling them. Agents who have penetrated an underground system can not only identify individual terrorists but often provide enough information to enable the authorities to destroy an entire clandestine cell or series of cells.
· At roads leading into a city, authorities search vehicles to make sure none is carrying weapons or explosives. Within the city itself, police spot-check passing cars (perhaps every fifth or tenth vehicle).
· Censuses are conducted frequently in order to keep track of inhabitants. An unexplained “cousin” who has come from the interior might be a Viet Cong agent.
· Still another tactic is to cordon off an area within a city suddenly and have the police carefully sweep through that zone. They round up persons who cannot adequately identify themselves or explain their presence.
· Secure areas are maintained around or adjoining government buildings. Vehicles entering these areas are subject to search, including search by means of a mirrored device that is passed underneath the vehicle to detect any explosives concealed there.
· The military have learned the value of civic action programs aimed at winning over the inhabitants of a troubled area so that they will support the government and its forces, not the rebel guerrillas. The same tactic is valid for urban police. If the police do not make an effort at maintaining friendly relations with the inhabitants of a troubled portion of a city, such as a ghetto area, those people are more likely to help terrorists who are striking at the police and the established order. Guerrillas in rural areas need the support of the peasantry. Similarly, urban guerrillas must be assisted by local people if they are to operate effectively and evade the police.
Urban terror is a cross between crime and insurgency. By adapting the techniques of crime-fighting and counter-insurgency, the best methods can probably be found for combating the terrorists.
Coral Gables, Florida
Notes
1. Vo Nguyen Giap, The South Vietnam People Will Win (Hanoi, 1965).
2. George Modelski, “Viet Minh” in Communism and Revolution, ed. C. E. Black and T. P. Thornton (Princeton, 1964).
3. A Study –Viet Cong Use of Terror (Saigon: United States Mission in Vietnam, 1967).
4. Stephen T. Hosmer, Viet Cong Repression and Its Implications for the Future (Santa Monica: The RAND Corporation, 1970).
5. Douglas Pike, The Viet-Cong Strategy of Terror (Saigon, 1970).
6. Ibid.
7. “The Communist Manifesto,” in Essential Works of Marxism, ed. Arthur P. Mendel (New York, 1965).
8. Karl Marx, Capital (New York: International Publishers Co. edition, 1967).
9. Jay Mallin, ed., “Che” Guevara on Revolution (Miami, 1969).
10. Selected Military Writings of Mao Tse-tung (Peking, 1963).
11. V. I. Lenin, “Partisan Warfare” in Modern Guerrilla Warfare, ed. Franklin Mark Osanka (New York, 1962).
12. “Snipers in Ambush: Police under the Gun,” Time, 14 September 1970.
Contributor
Jay Mallin (B.A., Florida Southern College), a journalist, first wrote for Cuba’s Havana Herald, later serving as correspondent for a number of U.S. newspapers and Time magazine. He covered the 1956-58 Cuban revolution and was there during the Bay of Pigs. He has covered the October missile crisis, the Dominican uprising, the Vietnam war, “Che” Guevara’s guerilla movement in Bolivia, and the 1969 Salvador-Honduras war. His books include Fortress Cuba, Caribbean Crisis, Terror in Viet Nam, “Che” Guevara on Revolution, and Strategy for Conquest.
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.
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