Non-Lethality: John B. Alexander,
the Pentagon's Penguin Source: Lobster Magazine UK June 1993
On April 22, 1993, both BBC1 and BBC2 showed on their
main evening news bulletins a rather lengthy piece concerning
America's latest development in weaponry - the non-lethal weapons
concept. David Shukman, BBC Defence Correspondent interviewed
(Retired) U.S. Army Colonel John B. Alexander and Janet Morris, two of
the main proponents of the concept (1). The concept of non-lethal
weapons is not new. Non-lethal weapons have been used by the
intelligence, police and defence establishments in the past (2).
Several western governments have used a variety of non-lethal weapons
in a more discreet and covert manner. It seems that the U.S.
government is about to take the first step towards their open use.
The current interest in the concept of non-lethal
weapons began about a decage ago with John Alexander. In December
1980 he published an article in the U.S. Army's journal, MILITARY
REVIEW, "The New Mental Battlefield," referring to claims that
telepathy could be used to interfere with the brain's electrical
activity. This caught the attention of senior Army generals who
encouraged him to pursue what they termed "soft option kill"
technologies.
After retiring from the Army in 1988, Alexander joined
the Los Alamos National Laboratories and began working with Janet
Morris, the Research Director of the U.S. Global Strategy Council
(USGSC), chaired by Dr Ray Cline, former Deputy Director of the CIA
(3). I examine the background of Janet Morris and John Alexander in
more detail below.
Throughout 1990 the USGSC lobbied the main national
laboratories, major defence contractors and industries, retired senior
military and intelligence officers. The result was the creation of a
Non-lethality Policy Review Group, led by
Major General Chris S. Adams, USAF (retd.) former Chief of Staff,
Strategic Air Command (4). They already have the support of Senator
Sam Nunn, chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee. According to
Janet Morris, the military attache at the Russian Embassy has
contacted USGSC about the possibility of converting military hardware
to a non-lethal capability.
In 1991 Janet Morris issued a number of papers giving
more detailed information about USGSC's concept of non-lethal weapons
(5). Shortly after, the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command at
Fort Monroe, VA, published a detailed draft
report on the subject titled "Operations Concept for Disabling
Measures." The report included over twenty projects in which John
Alexander is currently involved at the Los Alamos national
Laboratories.
In a memorandum dated April 10, 1991, titled "Do we need
a Non-lethal Defense initiative?" Paul Wolfwitz, Under Secretary of
Defense for Policy, wrote to Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, "A U.S.
lead in non-lethal technologies will increase our options and
reinforce our position in the post-Cold War world. Our Research and
Development efforts must be increased."
HOW LETHAL IS NON-LETHAL?
To support their non-lethal weapons concept, Janet
Morris argues that while "war will always be terrible... a world power
deserving its reputation for humane action should pioneer the
principles of non-lethal defense (6)." In "Defining a non-lethal
strategy," she seeks to establish a doctrine for the use
of non-lethal weapons by the U.S. in crisis "at home or abroad in a
life serving fashion." She totally disregards the offensive, lethal
aspects inhereent in some of the weapons in question, or their misuse,
should they become available to "rogue" nations. Despite her
arguments that non-lethal weapons should serve the U.S.'s interests
"at home and abroad by
projecting power without indiscriminately taking lives or destroying
property (7)," she admits that "casualties cannot be avoided (8)."
Closer examination of the types of weapons to be used as
non-lethal invalidates her assertions about their non-lethality.
According to her white paper, the areas where non-lethal weapons could
be useful are "regional and low inensity conflict (adventurism,
insurgency, ethnic violence, terrorism, narco-trafficking, domestic
crime) (9)." She believes that "by identifying and requiring a new
category of non-lethal weapons, tactics and strategic planning" the
U.S. can reshape its military capability "to meet the already
identifiable threats" that they might face in a multipolar world
"where American interests are globalized and American presence
widespread (10)."
THE POTENTIAL INVENTORY
Janet Morris' "White Paper" recommends "two types of
life-conserving technologies":
ANTI-MATERIAL NON-LETHAL TECHNOLOGIES
To destroy or impair electronics, or in other ways stop
mechanical systems from functioning. Amongst current technologies
from which this category of non-lethal weapons would or could be
chosen are:
* Chemical and bilogical weapons for their anti-materiel
agents "which do not significantly endanger life or the environment,
or anti-personnel agents which have no permanent effects (11)."
* Laser blinding systems to incapacitate the electronic
sensors, or optics, i.e. light detection and ranging. Already the
Army Infantry School is developing a one-man portable and operated
laser weapons system known as the
Infantry Self-Defense System. The U.S. Army's Armament Research,
Development and Engineer Center (ARDEC), is also engaged in the
development of non-lethal weapons under their program called "Low
Collateral Damage Munitions" (LCDM). The LCDM is trying to develop
technolgies leading to weapons capable of dazzling and incapacitating
missiles, armoured vehicles and personnel.
* Non-lethal electromagnetic technolgies.
* Non-nuclear Electromagnetic Pulse weapons (12). As
General Norman Schwartzkopf has told the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff,
one such weapons stationed in space with a wide-area-pulse capacity
has the ability to fry enemy electronics. But what would be the fate
of enemy personnel in such a scenario?
In a join project with the Los Alamos National Laboratories and with
technical support from the Army's Harry Diamond Laboratories, ARDEC
are developing High Power Microwave (HPM) Projectiles. According to
ARDEC, the Diamond lab has already "completed a radio frequency
effects analysis on a
representative target set" for (HPM).
* Among the chemical agents, so-called supercaustics -
"Millions of times more caustic than hydrofluric acid (13)" - are
prime candidates. An artillery round could deliver jellied
super-acids which could destroy the optics of
heavily armoured vehicles or tanks, vision blocks or glass, and "could
be used to silently destroy key weapons systems (14)."
On less lethal aspects the use of net-like entanglements
for SEAL teams, or "stealthy" metal boats with low or no radar
signature, "for night actions, or any seaborne or come-ashore stealthy
scenario" are under consideration (15).
More colourful concepts are the use of chemical metal embrittlement,
often called liquid metal embrittlement and anti-materiel polymers
which would be used in aerosol dispersal systems, spreading chemical
adhesives or lubricants (i.e. Teflon-based lubricants) on enemy
equipment from a distance.
ANTI-PERSONNEL NON-LETHAL TECHNOLOGIES
* Hand-held lasers which are menat "to dazzle," could
also cause the eyeball to explode and to blind the target.
* Isotropic radiators - explosively driven munitions,
capable of generating very bright omni-directional light, with similar
effects to laser guns.
* High-power microwaves (HPM) - U.S. Special Operations
command already has that capability within their grasp as a portable
microwave weapon (16). As Myron L. Wolbarsht, a Duke University
opthalamist and expert in laser
weapons stated: "U.S. Special Forces can quietly cut enemy
communications but also can cook internal organs (17)."
* Another candidate is Infrasound - acoustic beams. In
conjunction with the Scientific Applications and Research Associates
(SARA) of Huntingdon, California, ARDEC and Los Alamos laboratories
are busy "developing a high power, very low frequency acoustic beam
weapons." They are also looking into
methods of projecting non-diffracting (i.e. non-penetrating) high
frequency acoustic bullets. ARDEC scientists are also looking into
methods of using pulsed chemical lasers. This class of lasers could
project "a hot, high pressure plasma in the air in front of a target
surface, creating a blast wave that will result in variable but
controlled effects on materiel and personnel."
* Infrasound. Alrady some governments have used it as a
means of crowd control - e.g. France.
* Very low frequency (VLF) sound (20-35 KHz), or
low-frequency RF modulations can cause nausea, vomiting and abdominal
pains. "Some very low frequency sound generators, in certain
frequency ranges, can cause the disruption of human organs and, at
high power levels, can crumble masonry (18)." The CIA had a similar
program in 1978 called Operation Pique, which included bouncing radio
or microwave signals off the ionosphere to affect mental functions of
people in slected areas, including Eastern European nuclear
installations (19).
JOHN ALEXANDER
The entire non-lethal weapon concept opens up a new
Pandora's Box of unknown consequences. The main personality behind it
is retired Colonel John B. Alexander. Born in New York in 1937, he
spent part of his career as a Commander of Green Berets Special Forces
in Vietnam, led Cambodian mercenaries
behind enemy lines, and took part in a number of clandestine
programmes, including Phoenix. He currently holds the post of
Director of Non-lethal Programmes in the Los Alamos National
Laboratories.
Alexander obtained a BaS from the University of Nebraska
and an MA from Pepperdine University. In 1980 he was awarded a PhD
from Walden University (20) for his thesis "To determine whether or
not significant changes in spirituality occur in persons who attended
a Kubler-Ross life/death transition
workshop during the period June through February 1979." His
dissertation committee was chaired by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross.
He has long been interested in what used to be regarded
as "fringe" areas. In 1971, while a Captain in the infantry at
Schofield Barracks, Honolulu, he was diving in the Bemini Islands
looking for the lost continent of Atlantis. He
was an official representative for the Silva mind control organisation
and a lecturer on Precataclysmic Civilisations (21). Alexander is
also a past President and a Board member of the International
Association for Near Death Studies; and, with his former wife, Jan
Northup, he helped Dr C.B. Scott Jones perform ESP experiments with
dolphins (22).
PSI-TECH
Retired Major General Albert N. Stubblebine (Former
Director of U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command) and Alexander
are on the board of a "remote viewing" company called PSI-TECH. The
company also employs Major Edward Dames
(ex Defence Intelligence Agency), Major David Morehouse (ex 82nd
Airborne Division), and Ron Blackburn (former microwave scientist and
specialist at Kirkland Air Force Base). PSI-TECH has received several
government contracts. For example, during the Gulf War crisis the
Department for Defense asked it to use remote viewing to locate
Saddam's Scud missiles sites. Last year
(1992) the FBI sought PSI-TECH's assistance to locate a kidnapped
Exxon executive (23).
With Major Richard Groller and Janet Morris as his
co-authors, Alexander published THE WARRIOR'S EDGE in 1990 (24). The
book describes in detail various unconventional methods which would
enable the practitioner to acquire "human excellence and optimum
performance" and thereby become an invincible warrior (25). The
purpose of the book is "to unlock the door to the extraordinary human
potentials inherent in each of us. To do this, we, like governments
around the world , must take a fresh look at non-traditional methods
of affecting reality. We must raise human consciousness of the
potential power of the individual body/mind system - the power to
manipulate reality. We must be willing to retake control of our past,
present, and ultimately, our future (26)."
Alexander is a friend of Vice President Al Gore Jnr,
their relationship dating back to 1983 when Gore was in Alexander's
Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). NLP "presented to selected general
officers and Senior Executive Service
members (27)" a set of techniques to modify behaviour patterns (28).
Among the first generals to take the course was the then Lieutenant
General Maxwell Thurman, who later went on to receive his fourth star
and become Vice-Chief of Staff at the Army and Commander Southern
Command (29). Among other senior participants were Tom Downey and
Major General Stubblebine, former Director of the Army Intelligence
Security Command.
"In 1983, the Jedi master (from the Star Wars movie -
author) provided an image and a name for the Jei Project (30)." Jedi
Project's aim was to seek and "construct teachable models of
behaviorable/physical excellence using unconventional means (31)."
According to Alexander the Jedi Project was to be
a follow-up to Neuro-Linguistic Programming skills. By using the
influence of friends such as Major General Stubblebine, who was then
head of the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command, he managed to
fund Jedi. In reality the concept was old hat, re-christened by
Alexander. The original idea which was to show how "human will power
and human concentration affect performance more than any other single
factor (32)" using NLP skills, was the
brainchild of three independent people; Fritz Erikson, a Gestalt
therapist, Virginia Satir, a family therapist and Erick Erickson, a
hypnotist.
JANET MORRIS
Janet Morris, co-author of THE WARRIOR'S EDGE, is best
known as a science fiction writer but has been a member of the New
York Academy of Sciences since 1980 and is a member of the Association
for Electronic Defense. She is also the Research Director of the U.S.
Global Strategy Council (USGSC).
She was initiated into the Japanese art of bioenergetics, Joh-re, the
Indonesian brotherhood of Subud, and graduated from the Silva course
in advanced mind control. She has been conducting remote viewing
experiments for fifteen years. She worked on a research project
investigating the effects of mind on probability in computer systems.
Her husband, Robert Morris, is a former judge and a key member of the
American Security Council (33).
In a recent telephone conversation with the author (34),
Janet Morris confirmed John Alexander's involvement in mind control
and psychotronic projects in the Los Alamos National Laboratories.
Alexander and his team have recently been
working with Dr Igor Smirnov, a psychologist from the Moscow Insitute
of Psychocorrelations. They were invited to the U.S. after Janet
Morris' visit to Russia in 1991. There she was shown the technique
which was pioneered by the Russian Deparment of Psycho-Correction at
Moscow Medical Academy. The Russians employ a technique to
electronically analyse the human mind in order to influence it. They
input subliminal command messages, using key words transmitted in
"white noise" or music (35). Using an infrasound very low
frequency-type transmission, the acoustic psycho-correction message is
transmitted via bone conduction - ear plugs would not restrict the
message. To do that would require an entire body protection system.
According to the Russians the subliminal messages by-pass the
conscious level and are effective almost immediately.
C.B. SCOTT JONES
Jones is the former assistant to Senator Clairborne Pell
(Democrat, Rhode Island). Scott Jones was a member of U.S. Naval
Intelligence for 15 years, as well as Assistant Naval Attache, New
Delhi, India, in the 1960s. Jones has briefed the President's
Scientific Advisory Committee, and has testified before House and
Senate Committees on intelligence matters. After the navy he "worked
in the private sector research and development community involved in
the U.S. government sponsored projects for the Defense Nuclear Agency
(DNA), Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and U.S. Army Intelligence
and Security Command." He has been head of the Rockerfeller
Foundation for some time and chairs the American Society for Psychical
Research (36).
BIRDS OF A FEATHER
Alexander and C.B. Jones are members of the AVIARY, a
group of intelligence and Department of Defense officers and
scientists with a brief to discredit any serious research in the UFO
field. Each member of the Aviary bears a
bird's name. Jones is FALCON, John Alexander is PENGUIN.
One of their agents; a UFO researcher known as William
Moore, who was introduced to John Alexander at a party in 1987 by
Scott Jones, confessed in front of an audience at a conference held by
the MUTUAL UFO NETWORK (MUFON) on July 1, 1989, in Las Vegas, how he
was promised inside information by
the senior members of the AVIARY in return for his obedience and
service to them. He participated in the propagation and dissemination
of disinformation fed to him by various members of the AVIARY. He
also confessed how he was instructed to target one particular
individual, an electronics expert, Dr Paul
Bennewitz, who had accumulated some UFO film footage and electronic
signals which were taking place in 1980 over the Menzano Weapons
Storage areas, at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico. As a result of
Moore's involvement, coupled with some
surreptitious entries and psychological techniques, Bennewitz ended up
in a psychiatric hospital.
Just before the publication of my first paper unmasking
two members of the AVIARY (37) I was visited by two of their members
(MORNING DOVE and HAWK) who had travelled to the U.K. with a message
from the senior ranks advising me not to go ahead with my expose. I
rejected the proposal.
Immediately after the publication of that paper, and
with the full knowledge that myself and a handful of colleagues knew
the true identities of their members, John B. Alexander confessed that
he was indeed a member of the AVIARY,
nicknamed PENGUIN. The accuracy of our information was further
confirmed to me by yet another member of the AVIARY, Ron Pandolphi,
PELICAN. Pandolphi is a PhD in physics and works at the Rocket and
Missile section of the Office of the Deputy Director of Science and
Technology, CIA.
In his book, OUT THERE (38), the NEW YORK TIMES
journalist Howard Blum refers to "a UFO Working Group" within the
Defense Intelligence Agency. Despite DIA's repeated denials (39), the
existence of this working gorup has been confirmed to me by more than
one member of the group itself, including an
independent source in the Office of Naval Intelligence. The majority
of the group's members are senior members of the AVIARY: Dr
Christopher Green (BLUEJAY) from the CIA (40), Harold Puthoff (OWL)
ex-NSA; Dr Jack Verona (RAVEN) (DoD, one of
the initiators of the DIA's Sleeping Beauty project which aimed to
achieve battlefield superiority using mind-altering electromagnetic
weaponry); John Alexander (PENGUIN) and Ron Pandolphi (PELICAN).
The mysterious "Col. Harold E. Phillips" who appears in
Blum's OUT THERE is none other than John B. Alexander.
John Alexander's position as the Program Manager for
Contingency Missions of Conventional Defense Technology, Los Alamos
National Laboratories, enabled him to exploit the Department of
Defense's Project RELIANCE "which encourages a
search for all possible sources of existing and incipient technologies
before developing new technology in-house (41)" to tap into a wide
range of exotic topics, sometimes using defense contractors, e.g.
McDonnel Douglas Aerospce. I have several reports, some of which were
compiled before his departure to the
Los Alamos National Laboratories when he was with Army Intelligence,
which show Alexander's keen interest in any and every exotic subject -
UFOs, ESP, psychotronics, anti-gravity devices, near death
experiments, psychology warfare and non-lethal weaponry.
John Alexander utilises the bank of information he has
accumulated to try to develop psychotronic, psychological and mind
weaponry. He began thinking about non-lethal weapons a decade ago in
his paper "The New Mental Battlefield." He seems to want to become a
"Master." If he ever succeeds in this ambition the rest of us
ordinary mortals had better watch out.
NOTES:
1. Letter dated 2 April, 1993, to author from Mrs
Victoria Alexander.
2. The U.S. Army Chemical and Military Police used
"Novel Effect Weapons" against the women protesters at the Greenham
Common Base.
3. The United States Global Strategy Council is an
independent think tank, incorporated in 1981. It focuses on
long-range strategic issues. The founding members were Clare Boothe
Luce, General Maxwell Taylor, General Albert Wedemeyer, Dr Ray Cline
(Co-chair), Jeane Kirkpatrick (Co-chair), Morris
Leibman, Henry luce III, J. William Middendorf II, Admiral Thomas H.
Moorer USN (retd), General Richard Stillwell (retd), Dr Michael A.
Daniles (President), Dr Dalton A. West (Executive Vice President).
Its Research Directors were Dr Yona Alexander, Dr Roger Fontaine,
Robert L. Katula and Janet Morris.
4. NONLETHAlITY: DEVELOPMENT OF A NATIONAL POLICY AND
EMPLOYING NONLETHAL MEANS IN A NEW STATEGIC ERA - a Project of the
U.S. Global Strategy Council, 1991, p.4. Other staff members of the
USGSC are Steve Trevino, Dr John B. Alexander and Chris Morris.
5. The USGSC has issued a wide variety of papers on the
Nonlethal Weapons Concept. For example, IN SEARCH OF NONLETHAL
STRATEGY (Janet Morris); NONLETHALITY: A GLOBAL STRATEGY - WHITE
PAPER; NONLETHALITY BRIEFING SUPPLEMENT No.1; and NONLETHALITY IN THE
OPERATIONAL CONTIUNUUM.
6. IN SEARCH OF A NONLETHAL STRATEGY, Janet Morris,
p.1.
7. NONLETHALITY: A GLOBAL STRATEGY - WHITE PAPER, p.3.
8. IN SEARCH OF... P.3.
9. In the recent cult siege in Waco, Texas, a
"nonlethal" technique, projecting sublimal messages, was used to
influence David Kuresh - without effect.
10. NONLETHALITY: A GLOBAL STRATEGY - WHITE PAPER, p.2.
11. The computer data base compiled during the
CIA/Army's Project OFTEN, examining several thousand chemical
compounds, during 1976-1973, is a most likely candidate for any
chemical agents for nonlethal weapons.
12. The British MoD is already developing a "microwave
bomb." Work on the weapon is going on at the Defence Research Agency
at Farnborough, Hampshire. See SUNDAY TELEGRAPH September 27, 1992,
partly reproduced in LOBSTER 24, p.14. The Royal Navy is already in
possession of laser weapons which dazzle aircraft pilots. The Red
Cross has called for them to be banned under the Geneva Convention
because could permanently blind.
13. IN SEARCH OF A NONLETHAL STRATEGY, p.13.
14. Ibid.
15. The U.S. Navy, through its Project SEA SHADOW, has
already developed a stealth boat. Like the Lockheed F117A, stealth
fighter, it leaves no radar signature - BBC, Newsround, April 28,
1993.
16. Taped conversation with Janet Morris, March 1, 1993.
17. THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, January 4, 1993.
18. IN SEARCH OF A NONLETHAL STRATEGY, p. 14.
19. REMOTE CONTROL TECHNOLOGY, Anna Keeler (FULL
DISCLOSURE, Ann Arbor, U.S.A., 1989) p.11.
20. Walden University, 801 Anchor Road Drive, Naples,
Fl. 33904, U.S.A. Walden University considers itself a
non-traditional university and does not offer any undergraduate
courses to its students.
21. Brad Steiger, MYSTERIES OF SPACE AND TIME (Prentice
Hall, Engelwood Cliffs, New Jersey) pp.72 and 3. The U.S. Army
Command and General College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, issued this on
Alexander's career: "Colonel John B. Alexander, U.S. Army Retired,
manages Antimateriel Technology at Los Alamos
National Laboratories, Los Alamos, New Mexico. His military
assignments included; Advanced Systems Concepts Office, Laboratory
Command; manager, Technology Integration Office, Army Material
Command; assistant deputy chief of staff, Technology Planning and
Management, Army Material Command; and chief, Advanced Human
Technology, Intelligence and Security Command."
22. Taped telephone conversation with Dr Scott Jones,
August 17, 1992.
23. Taped telephone converstaion with Maj. Edward Dames,
June 27, 1992; and THE BULLETIN OF ATOMIC SCIENTISTS, December 1992,
p.6.
24. THE WARRIOR'S EDGE, Col. John B. Alexander, Maj.
Richard Groller and Janet Morris, (William Morrow Inc., New York,
1990).
25. Ibid. p.9.
26. Ibid. pp.9 and 10.
27. Ibid p.47.
28. Ibid.
29. Ibid.
30. Ibid. pp.72 and 3.
31. Ibid. p.12.
32. Ibid. p. 13.
33. The American Security Council (ASC) Box 8, Boston,
Virginia 22713, USA. ASC is militarist, anti-communist and right-wing.
Formed in the mid 1950s, the Council acts as a right-wing think tank
on foreign policy and lobbies for the expansion and strengthening of
U.S. miliary forces. In 1985 the ASC had 330,000 members. See, for
example, the entry for the ASC in THE RADICAL RIGHT: A WORLD
DIRECTORY, compiled by Ciaran O Maolain (Longman, London 1987).
34. Taped telephone conversation with Janet Morris,
March 1, 1993.
35. In 1989 a U.S. Department of Defense consultant and
contractor explained to the author how he was asked to examine the
possibility of devising operational methods of transmitting subliminal
messages through the TV screen.
36. "Will the Real Scott Jones please stand up?" -
unpublished paper by George Hansen and Robert Durant, February 20,
1990, pp.4 and 5.
37. "The Birds" Armen Victorian, in U.K. UFO Magazine,
Vol.11 No.3, July/August 1992, pp 4-7.
38. OUT THERE, Howard Blum (Simon and Schuster, London
1990) pp.44, 46-51, 55-57.
39. DIA's letters to author dated July 12, 1991, July 8,
1992 and December 18, 1992.
40. Dr Chistopher "Kit" Green, BLUEJAY, has admitted
that the CIA has compiled over 30,000 files on UFOs, 200 of which are
extremely interesting. Green was a key CIA member in examining the UFO
problem for several years.
41. Los Alamos National Laboratory, Institutional Plan
Fiscal Year 1992 - Fiscal Year 1997, p.14
by Armen Victorian
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