The Nixon administration came up with the right answers on terrorism......but after "Watergate"...and the subsequent Democrat presidency of Jimmy Carter.....it was all "let go" and forgot about. All those years that Democrats controlled our Congress and Senate....they failed us. Wonder where all the Dems will be on this latest news in regards to their "blame game?"



AP: U.S. Foresaw Terror Threats in 1970s

Jan 23, 5:40 PM (ET)

By FRANK BASS and RANDY HERSCHAFT

WASHINGTON (AP) - Nearly three decades before the Sept. 11 attacks, a high-level government panel developed plans to protect the nation against terrorist acts ranging from radiological "dirty bombs" to airline missile attacks, according to declassified documents obtained by The Associated Press.

"Unless governments take basic precautions, we will continue to stand at the edge of an awful abyss," Robert Kupperman, chief scientist for the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, wrote in a 1977 report that summarized nearly five years of work by the Cabinet Committee to Combat Terrorism.

The group was formed in September 1972 by President Nixon after Palestinian commandos slaughtered 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Games. The committee involved people as diverse as Henry Kissinger to a young Rudolph Giuliani, the once-secret documents show.
"It is vital that we take every possible action ourselves and in concert with other nations designed to assure against acts of terrorism," Nixon wrote in asking his secretary of state, William Rogers, to oversee the task force.

"It is equally important that we be prepared to act quickly and effectively in the event that, despite all efforts at prevention, an act of terrorism occurs involving the United States, either at home or abroad," the president said.The full committee met only once, in October 1972, to organize, but its experts did get together twice a month over nearly five years to identify threats and debate solutions, the memos show.

Eventually, the group's influence waned as competing priorities, a change of presidents ushered in by Watergate, bureaucratic turf battles and a lack of spectacular domestic attacks took their toll.

But before that happened, the panel identified many of the same threats that would confront President Bush at the dawn of the 21st century.
The experts fretted that terrorists might gather loose nuclear materials for a "dirty bomb" that could devastate an American city by spreading lethal radioactivity.

"This is a real threat, not science fiction," National Security Council staffer Richard T. Kennedy wrote his boss, Kissinger, in November 1972.

Rogers, in a memo to Nixon in mid-1973, praised the Atomic Energy Commission's steps to safeguard nuclear weapons. Rogers, however, also warned the president that "atomic materials could afford mind-boggling possibilities for terrorists."
Committee members identified commercial jets as a particular vulnerability, but raised concerns that airlines would not pay for security improvements such as tighter screening procedures and routine baggage inspections.

"The trouble with the plans is that airlines and airports will have to absorb the costs and so they will scream bloody murder should this be required of them," according to a White House memo from 1972. "Otherwise, it is a sound plan which will curtail the risk of hijacking substantially."

By 1976, government pressure to improve airport security and thwart hijackings had awakened airline industry lobbyists.
The International Air Transport Association said "airport security is the responsibility of the host government. The airline industry did not consider the terrorist threat its most significant problem; it had to measure it against other priorities. If individual companies were forced to provide their own security, they would go broke," according to minutes from one meeting.

Thousands of pages of heavily blacked out records and memos obtained by the AP from government archives and under the Freedom of Information Act show the task force:

_discussed defending commercial aircraft against being shot down by portable missile systems;

_recommended improved vigilance at potential "soft" targets, such as major holiday events, municipal water supplies, nuclear power plants and electric power facilities;

_supported cracking down on foreigners living in and traveling through the United States, with particular attention to Middle Easterners and Arab-Americans;

_developed plans to protect U.S. diplomats and businessmen working abroad against kidnapping and attack.

Though the CIA routinely updated the committee on potential terrorist threats and plots, task force members learned quickly that intelligence gathering and coordination was a weak spot, just as Bush would discover three decades later.

Long before he was mayor and helped New York City recover from the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, Giuliani told the committee in May 1976 that he feared legal restrictions were thwarting federal agents from collecting intelligence unless there had been a violation of the law.

Giuliani, who at that time was the associate deputy attorney general in President Ford's Justice Department, suggested relaxing intelligence collection guidelines - something that occurred with the Patriot Act three decades later

Other committee members said that obstacles to intelligence gathering were more bureaucratic than legal.

Lewis Hoffacker, a veteran ambassador who served as chairman of the terrorism working group, told the AP that institutional rivalries, particularly between the FBI and CIA, were a constant source of frustration even in the 1970s.

"That was our headache, a quarter-century ago," said Hoffacker, now retired. "They all pulled back into their little fiefdoms. The CIA was always off by itself, and the FBI was dealing with the same situation they're dealing with today."

Finding the political will to fight terrorism in the absence of a major attack in the United States also quickly became a problem. Proposals for international penalties against countries harboring terrorists drew little support from the United Nations, the memos show.
"The climate at the 1974 General Assembly was such that no profitable initiative in the terrorism field was feasible," Ford heard from Kissinger, his secretary of state, in early 1975.

Two years later, the working group was absorbed by the National Security Council. In a 1978 report, the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee worried that the Carter administration was not giving enough attention to terrorism.
"The United States will not be able to combat the growing challenge of terrorism unless the executive policy-making apparatus is more effectively and forcefully utilized," the Senate committee warned."
http://apnews1.iwon.com//article/200...D87Q2FRO0.html


And so....all our leaders simply ignored this UNTIL PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH CAME ALONG. BTW, guess who one of those big airline lobbyists was? Tom Daschle's wife.

Also.....the United Nations failed us and the world....as they didn't give two hoots about terrorism and what had happened. After all....it was only Jewish athletes. Disgusting.

__________________
"What exactly is this foreign policy experience?" Obama said mockingly of the New York senator. "Was she negotiating treaties? Was she handling crises? The answer is no."

JP5 WROTE JP There are many issues that I do agree with you on but when you try to blame all the problems of 9/11 on the Democrats and "the Democratically controlled congress" that is not supportable.

That type of blame game is no better and is just as childish as the Democrats who claims that Republicans want "children to starve" if Reps block increases in the school lunch program.

I will grant you that after Watergate there was a horrendous over-reaction to the intelligence agencies and the FBI and the pendulum swung way too far. That was very wrong. Frank Church should have probably been investigated for treason. Intelligence committee chair.

Yet it is very very wrong when Republicans who try to defend Nixon and call the WATERGATE break in a " third rate burglary". The truth is that Watergate was only the tip of the iceberg for Nixon's treachery. For those of us who lived in those times Nixon behaved as if he was Chairman of the Soviet Union rather than a U.S president.

Since Nixon and before Bush II the years of Democratic and Republican control of the White House is equal.

To blame all the ills that happen to this country since 1972 on the Dems, but to take credit for the Reagan years is disingenuous.

Example : The blame game has been played by both camps with equal stupidity. Blaming Bush alone for 9/11 after he was only in office for months is just as stupid as blaming Clinton for the first World trade center bombings which occurred one month and a few days after Clinton took office.

The blame for 9/11 can be spread over many years and can fall into many laps. Let's work on fixing it and not pointing the finger of blame.

I say that to both Democrats and Republicans.

C'mon blaming the Dems for lack of preperation on terrorism because of a report back in the 1970's!!!??? The Bush administration puts our troops in the heart of the Middle East and they don't have the brain power to put enouph armor on vehicles to protect them. Think about it,the Bush administration didn't have the insight to know that our troops would be vulnerable to terrorism in Iraq and prepare for it ahead of time. I can understand not being prepared for terrorism in NYC or Washington DC but how could you be so dumb as to not expect it in Bagdad? And your griping about Dems and othe politicians not paying attention to a 1970s report?

You really ought to get outside and shovel some snow, it's quite theraputic.

And if you read the 9.11 report or Richard Clarke's book, you would know that Bush ignored it also until September 11th.

__________________
"George W. Bush surrounds himself with smart people the way a hole surrounds itself with a donut." —Dennis Miller

Where did I say I blamed it "ALL" on them? I didn't....and I don't. But you have to admit, many Democrats have tried to blame it all on Pres. Bush. And that's why I bring this up and post this new finding. As you can see.....ignoring the threat of terrorism began decades ago. I NEVER see any of them admit they have any responsibility for it.

I agree. That's why I've alwas felt it was childish when they tried to blame Bush for 9/11. And you must admit.....many did and still do.

That doesn't really justify their ignoring that panels' findings about terrorism and never addressing the problem. But yes, there was definitely an overreaction.

I did live during those times. And I didn't like Nixon....but for different reasons....having little to do with Watergate....although I didn't respect him for that either.

Again.....you misunderstand. I point out the part about the Democrats...ONLY because Democrats never do. The Democrats in power right now don't seem to think Democrats ever had a thing to do with it. They seem to think it was all George W. Bush. I posted this new finding to simply point it out.

Difference is....I never blamed Clinton for the first WTC attack....and I still don't. And I never heard any other Republicans in power blame him either. What I DO blame Clinton for is not realizing the extent of that attack and what he didn't do afterwards to prepare for this new threat on our home soil.

I totally agree. And that's what I've said and believed all along. But from what I hear.....MOST Democrats don't. And this is a new news story that backs us up. It's about time to STOP blaming Pres. Bush when he was in office for only 230 days....when all these decades before NO ONE on either side of the aisle or from either party addressed the problem. That's my point.

__________________
"What exactly is this foreign policy experience?" Obama said mockingly of the New York senator. "Was she negotiating treaties? Was she handling crises? The answer is no."

That's what Clarke said in his book. He said just the opposite at other times. And I know for a fact that Bush did NOT ignore the threat of terrorism before 9/11. One of the first things he did was to write a letter to and contact Musharaff.....because he felt re-building that relationship was primary on fighting terrorism. Then he tasked Condi Rice to put together an action plan to "eliminate al Qaeda"......instead of simply "rolling them back" which had been the policy under Clinton. She had that report and plan done and placed it on his desk on September 10, 2001.

__________________
"What exactly is this foreign policy experience?" Obama said mockingly of the New York senator. "Was she negotiating treaties? Was she handling crises? The answer is no."

See??????? What did I tell ya, F100???? Right on que.....and just as I said.

__________________
"What exactly is this foreign policy experience?" Obama said mockingly of the New York senator. "Was she negotiating treaties? Was she handling crises? The answer is no."

Lucky for us that George W. Bush wasn't Pres in 1941, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Because he would probably have invaded Australia!

__________________
<<Cheer up, the worst is yet to come.>>

"Because he would probably have invaded Australia"

Or France...

__________________
I was banned from godlike productions(over 400 times)... and loved it.

"I haven't made you angry, have I?" -Malcolm Reynolds