Document of the Week #19 FBI, State Department Tracked the Croatian Fraternal Union for Decades

When the first lodge of what would become the Croatian Fraternal Union of America was founded on January 14, 1894, it marked the beginning of a mutual support group and cultural association that would last well into the 21^st century.

It would also mark the creation of an organization that would spend much of the 20^th century under the gaze of American law enforcement. As the 8/30/1976 FBI telex to the State Department reveals, the FBI and the State Department were monitoring the Croatian Fraternal Union of America for decades, starting according to this record, in 1942. According to other records I saw in the FBI’s IWG files on the Ustashi, the Croatian Fraternal Union of America was investigated as early as 1940. Why would the Croatian Fraternal Union warrant decades of apparently intense FBI and State Department scrutiny?

The answer, which is based off of documents that I have seen but did not copy, is that the Croatian Fraternal Union of America was investigated as part of a broader investigation into organization that had ethnic, religious, cultural, or political ties to the Tripartite Pact powers. After the establishment of the Independent State of Croatia, this meant that Croatians were a suspect group in the United States. From surviving records, it appears that the Ustasha movement was the most intently investigated, but many Croatian groups were examined including the Croatian Peasant Party, the Croatian Catholic Union, and the Croatian Fraternal Union.

Once the war ended, much of this surveillance was stopped. For example, the FBI files on the Croatian Peasant Party and Croatian Catholic Church largely stop in 1945. I suspect, but cannot prove until I receive the documentation, is that the FBI continued monitoring the Croatian Fraternal Union due to allegations that the organization was “Communist” and had ties to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. After the easing of the Red Scare, I suspect that the Croatian Fraternal Union was subjected to continued investigation for three reasons. During the late 1960s, Croatian militants became more strident in their calls for Croatian independence, even taking actions here in the United States. Judging from the FBI files of Croatian organizations that I have received via FOIA submitted on my behalf, the Croatian agitation reach a point that the FBI could no longer ignore in the 1967-1968 time frame and many of the large Croatian oriented groups were investigated. I suspect it then-ongoing relationship with the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia led to a continued FBI interest in the Croatian Fraternal Union of America. Finally, the Croatian Fraternal Union would come under attack from some of the Croatian organizations actively seeking Yugoslavia’s destruction. Bernard Luketich received death threats that provided to be anything less than idle in the summer of 1977 when he was attacked by men with lead pipes. (2)

However, this is just semi-informed speculation until I receive the documentation

(1) An example of this is Dinko Šuljak's The Communist conspiracy in the Croatian Fraternal Union

(2) http://www.jasenovac-info.com/cd/biblioteka/pavelicpapers/ljubas/al0004.html

Pray Away the Gay: US Navy Edition

In response to a long-ago FOIA request for 

Information regarding Navy policy toward sailors who have participated “in converstion [sic], therapy, reorientation therapy, reparative theory, or other programs designed to 'cure' homosexuality.”

the United States Navy, like the United States Air Force, has confirmed that it does not recognize the primary methodologies evangelicals and others in the homophobe community promote to handle the gay community.

It seems that if Ted Haggard had been a US sailor, his claims that he had prayed away the gay would fall on death ears.

The NSA Calls for "People's History," Provides a Primer

A recently responded to FOIA request netted this call for/primer on "People's History," from the NSA in which a historian with the Center for Cryptologic History calls on NSA staffers to document their work and thoughts on major events, so that "History From Below" can be written.

Howard Zinn must be spinning in his grave

Document of the Week: State Deparment Cable on Ante Gotovina's Capture

Again, I was late with the Document of the Week. This week's Document of the Week is a 12/08/05 cable from the US embassy in Zagreb to Foggy Bottom providing the details of how Ante Gotovina was captured. Citing sources within Croatian intelligence and (probably) the ICTY, (1)  the US Embassy writes that Spanish intelligence, the Croatian Intelligence Agency (IA) and the Croatian Counter Intelligence Agency (POA), and select ICTY officials tracked him for months.The cable also noted that Gotovina's arrest "marked a major step forward for Croatian law enforcement, as no word of this effort had leaked to the public during the multi-month operation."

(1) Given the cable redacts the name of the informant, there is no way to know for sure at this time. Given the cable is not sent to the American embassy in Madrid, this leads to me to believe that the cable's named source is not from the Spanish government. Nothing more than a hunch leads me to conclude that the source if from the ICTY instead of Croatian.

(2) This cable was photocopied in an effort to cover up some food stains. It failed. Even worse the photocopy of the cable was shrunk. To make it more readable and to reduce its size, I axed a lot of white space.

Ante Markovic's Throat Surgery and Its Greater Significance

Despite the concern over the political impact of his absence shown in this cable, I doubt the absence of Ante Markovic, the last prime minister of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, due to surgery for an unknown throat concern had much impact on the course of Yugoslav history.

However, one should consider this cable in the broader FOIA context. This document discusses the personal medical history of a still living individual and was released intact with no redactions.  In contrast, the FBI will not even considering releasing the FBI files of living individuals who have been tried and convicted within the federal court system. Nor will they release the FBI files of prominent

American leaders such as Joe Biden or Barack Obama despite the fact an argument can be made that their prominence and positions of authority overrule their b(6) privacy rights under FOIA.

Finally, does anyone know what Markovic's condition was? I cannot find any information on it in the secondary literature, any other declassified and released State Department cable, or memoir of a participant.

Document(s) of the Week# 16 The Renatta Predmore Case

In the mid 1970s, Renatta Predmore filed a lawsuit against the NSA after she discovered she was denied a promotion due to her gender.  She prevailed.  The 1976 settlement of her case forced the NSA to include a woman on every promotion board. In 1980, a codicil amending this settlement compelled the NSA to to publish the male/female composition of their promotion boards each year. (1) Below are copies of those documents

Women in NSA Documents

A NSA history concedes that lawsuit did not totally end discrimination, but giving "a fair hearing for women at promotion time." (2) However as James Bamford documented in Body of Secret,  the NSA still had serious deficiencies in this regard. (3)

(1) Jill Frahm, From Librarians to Leadership: Women at NSA, Cryptologic Almanac 50th Anniversary Series http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/crypto_almanac_50th/From_Librarians_to_Leadership.pdf
(2) Jill Frahm, From Librarians to Leadership: Women at NSA, Cryptologic Almanac 50th Anniversary Series http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/crypto_almanac_50th/From_Librarians_to_Leadership.pdf
(3) James Bamford, Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency, (New York: Anchor Books: 2002) 559-60

Document of the Week #15 CIA Report on Terrorist Attacks on American Business Abroad

In the hubbub spawned by the successful whacking of Osama Bin Laden, I totally forgot to post a Document of the Week. By the time I remembered to do so, it was already Thursday and I simply decided to shelve it until next week.

This Document of the Week is a June 1982 CIA report on terrorist attacks against American businesses aboard between January 1968 through December 1981. Twenty pages in length, the report includes several interesting graphs and numerous factoids that challenge the post-9/11 narrative that terrorism was unknown to the United States and its American inhabitants.

In the 14-year span covered by the report, the CIA noted there almost a thousand terrorist attacks against American business interests by foreign terrorists. Of the 953 attacks carried out by 98 different foreign terrorist organizations against American businesses, 144 of them caused casualties. The number of attacks increased from 1968 until they peaked in 1974 when they began a decline that was interrupted by an uptick in 1978 due to the events in Iran. During this time period, Argentina was the site of the most attacks against American businesses keeping with Latin America being the geographic location of the most attacks Argentinian terrorist organization Montoneros was the group responsible for the most terrorist attacks against American interests in the time period covered by the report. The Western Europe and the Middle East were each the locations of 18% of the total attacks followed by the North America (which includes the United States saw 16% of the total attacks.

This report does have some noticeable errors. A while back, I posted a similar CIA focused on skyjackings of American aircraft, which listed attacks by Croatian and Serbian nationalists groups opposed to the former Yugoslavia. This report lists and mentions  those acts (calling them skyjackings) but fails to list the groups responsible for them.

CIA Report on Terrorist Attacks on American Businesses