When President Clinton nominated Morton Halperin to a senior Pentagon post last March 31st, he sent a loud signal that should have been picked up immediately by the loyal opposition. Easily one of the most radical activists yet named to the Clinton entourage, Halperin's nomination should erase any doubts about the new Administration's commitment to the ideology and policies of the extreme left.

News of Halperin's imminent designation to the high defense office traveled rapidly among his comrades on the left. "Early congratulations to Morton Halperin for his pending appointment as an assistant secretary of defense for democracy and human rights," gushed The Nation in its March 8th issue, weeks before the nomination was officially announced. Noting that Halperin and Defense Secretary Les Aspin had served together in the Pentagon in the 1960s, the radical editors at The Nation expressed hope that Halperin would be able to draw his boss back to the revolutionary roots Aspin allegedly abandoned during the Reagan years, when he "veered toward respectability" as chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. "Aspin's hiring of Halperin, who has been handed the gays-in-the-military brief, is a good sign," enthused The Nation, which is solidly pro-homosexual. "Maybe Halperin can reawaken the bad boy that might still rest, however deeply, within Aspin."

In its July 5th issue, Time magazine reported that "Republicans are girding to attack" the Halperin appointment and "sources say Clinton is backing away from him." However, on August 5th the President sent formal nominating papers for Halperin to the Senate. On August 11th, under the headline "Liberal Pentagon Nominee Faces Fire," the Washington Times reported that the nomination "is expected to spark a fierce political battle." The Times reporter, Bill Gertz, identified Halperin as "a former American Civil Liberties Union attorney." But the controversial nominee is not merely a "liberal" and an erstwhile ACLU hack; he is a militant leftist who has collaborated with some of America's most vicious, avowed enemies. He has proven by his words and deeds that he is fanatically dedicated to an agenda that, were it to succeed, would destroy America.

Although hardly a household name, in intelligence circles Morton Halperin is notorious. He is one of a number of former government officials who for decades have been actively associated with a network of hard-core Marxist organizations operating in our nation's capital, many of which have been directly linked to the Soviet KGB, the Cuban DGI, and other foreign communist intelligence agencies. Foremost among these subversive groups is the ubiquitous Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), with which Halperin has been deeply involved for many years.

A full cataloging of Halperin's unsavory and anti-American activities would require far more space than this article permits, but following is a brief sampling:

• As a leader of the McNamara-Warnke disarmament clique at the Pentagon in charge of the SALT I Agreements, Halperin intentionally deceived the Joint Chiefs of Staff as to the content of the agreements in order to get JCS support. This was a matter with grave impact on American national security and with dramatic benefits for the Soviet Union.

• Publication of the top-secret Pentagon Papers constituted one of the most far-reaching security breaches in U.S. history. All evidence points to Halperin (who oversaw the preparation of these documents) and his fellow IPS associates, Paul Warnke and Leslie Gelb, as accomplices with Daniel Ellsberg in the Pentagon Papers leak.

• Nearly a year after receiving copies of the Pentagon Papers from Ellsberg, the Institute for Policy Studies held a conference, "U.S. Strategy in Asia," in September 1970, featuring Ellsberg, Gelb, Halperin, and other high-level government officials. It stretches credulity to the breaking point to suggest that Halperin -- who was closely tied to the IPS at that time -- had no knowledge of his IPS cohorts' possession of the stolen documents. This was long before Ellsberg and IPS directors Richard Barnet and Marcus Raskin took the documents to the New York Times and the Washington Post.

• As director of the ACLU's Washington office, Halperin defended the right of the ultra-left Progressive magazine to publish a recipe for manufacturing a nuclear bomb.

• When CIA traitor and self-described "communist revolutionary" Philip Agee faced deportation charges in Britain, Halperin flew to his defense; he defended Agee's practice of exposing the identities of U.S. intelligence operatives, denying that it would endanger their lives or America's security.

• As director of the IPS-created Center for National Security Studies, director of the Campaign for Political Rights, and a participant in many related groups, Halperin can claim the dubious honor of being one of the most implacable foes of U.S. intelligence, police, and security agencies. The unrelenting campaigns of Halperin and his comrades have resulted in the crippling and outright destruction of many of the protective layers of foreign intelligence and internal security that are crucial to our national survival. Their attacks have left us dangerously vulnerable to terrorism, and to the loss of freedom due to government over-reaction to this vulnerability. Not content with the enormous damage he has already inflicted, Halperin continues to push for restrictions on, and abolition of, internal security measures. He insists that under no circumstances can covert intelligence operations be justified.

• Although he is well aware that the IPS and many of the cogs in its international network have been exposed as assets of the Soviet KGB and its subsidiary intelligence operations in communist satellite countries, Halperin has made no effort to separate himself from these declared enemies of the U.S.

• As an ardent apostle of unilateral disarmament, he would have terminated two legs of the U.S. strategic triad -strategic bombers and ICBMs -- leaving us only our nuclear submarines, in spite of the massive Soviet buildup of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s.

• Ignoring overwhelming evidence to the contrary, he has steadfastly maintained that the Soviet Union has harbored no expansionist designs toward Western Europe. Its brutal imperialist history notwithstanding, Halperin has repeatedly claimed that the Soviets' enormous military escalation is intended only for "defensive" purposes.

• As a dedicated globalist, Halperin has consistently favored ceding portions of national sovereignty to the United Nations, leading ineluctably to eventual submergence of the United States into a UN-controlled world government.

In any evaluation of the long lineup of infamous subversives who, both inside and outside of government, have harmed greatly America's security in the past few decades, Morton Halperin would have to rank near the top. As bad as his nomination is, however, it could prove to be a blessing in disguise -- provided that the Senate takes seriously its responsibility to look into the qualifications of the nominee and that a sufficient number of senators honor their oath to defend the Republic against enemies foreign and domestic.

It would be virtually impossible for the Senate to take even a cursory look at Halperin's background without realizing that, rather than being confirmed, he should be thoroughly investigated for his past actions. Sticking out like the proverbial sore thumb in Halperin's sordid vita and begging for investigation is his inexcusably protracted association with the previously mentioned Institute for Policy Studies. No mere "liberal think tank," as it is frequently described in the IPS-friendly Establishment media, the IPS is a lethal weapon tearing at America's vitals. Brian Crozier, director of the London-based Institute for the Study of Conflict, has aptly described IPS as the "perfect intellectual front for Soviet activities which would be resisted if they were to originate openly from the KGB."

Celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, the IPS was founded by Richard Barnet and Marcus Raskin, both disgruntled U.S. government officials -Barnet from the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Raskin from the National Security Council. With funding from the pro-communist Stern Family Fund and the Samuel Rubin Foundation, they were off and running and IPS rapidly became the action hub in Washington, DC for such revolutionary groups as: Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Black Panther Party, Weathermen, Communist Party, Venceremos Brigade, Socialist Workers Party, World Peace Council, National Lawyers Guild (NLG), et al.

In 1969, Barnet journeyed to Hanoi as a guest of Communist Premier Van Dong and used the occasion as an antiwar (read anti-American) propaganda forum. Many other IPSers would follow in his footsteps on pilgrimages to "Uncle Ho's" peasant paradise.

Attorney Peter Weiss, longtime chairman of the board of trustees at IPS, is a prominent member of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) and the National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee, both officially cited Communist Party fronts. Weiss so sympathized with communist terrorist causes that he petitioned the West German government to allow him to defend the Baader-Meinhoff terrorists when they were on trial for bombing and kidnapping.

IPS fellow Saul Landau is a personal friend of, and ardent propagandist for (on film and in print), Fidel Castro. Fellow Tariq Ali has said: "I think that to achieve the ends we believe in to the establishment of a Socialist republic, I believe that a certain element of violence is absolutely necessary." IPS director Robert Borosage is a member of the communist front NLG and the Soviet-controlled International Association of Democratic Lawyers.

Together with Borosage, Halperin launched the Center for National Security Studies (CNSS) and the Campaign to Stop Government Spying, later renamed the Campaign for Political Rights (CPR). Steven Powell, in his masterful exposé of IPS, Covert Cadre, writes: "Under the leadership of Morton Halperin, CPR became the workhorse in the campaign against the CIA, FBI, and local law-enforcement agencies."

One of Halperin's most troubling and long-standing associations is with infamous CIA turncoat Philip Agee. Agee left the Central Intelligence Agency in 1969 to launch a career as a Soviet disinformation agent, Castroite propagandist, and professional CIA-basher. In his 1975 best-seller, Inside the Company: CIA Diary, Agee declared: "Reform of the FBI and the CIA, even removal of the President from office, cannot remove the problem .... The argument is with capitalism, and it is capitalism that must be opposed." In the June 1975 issue of Esquire magazine, Agee left no doubt as to where his loyalties lie when he said: "I aspire to be a communist and a revolutionary."

With IPS help, Agee launched CounterSpy magazine, which specialized in "naming names" of CIA personnel (real and alleged) around the world. One of those "outed" by CounterSpy was Richard Welch, CIA station chief in Athens, Greece. Shortly after this exposure, Welch was assassinated outside his Athens home on December 23, 1975. In a column for the Washington Post in 1977, Halperin attempted to dismiss Agee's role in Welch's death with the comment that "the Welch murder has become part of CIA mythology." According to Halperin: "The point here is not whether the assassins learned of Welch's identity because of the CounterSpy article or his choice of residence .... The point is rather that the CIA engaged in news management immediately after his death to make a political point." Rather, the point is that when it comes to justifying the murderous and treasonous exploits of his comrades, no rationalization is too absurd or shameless for Halperin.

Convinced that Agee's CounterSpy activities were responsible for the exposure and murder of two British intelligence agents in Poland, the British government deported him in 1977. Morton Halperin flew to London to testify in Agee's behalf. Unable to stop the deportation, Halperin and friends arranged for Agee to move into the Amsterdam-based, IPS-affiliated Transnational Institute.

It is worth noting that Agee has no problem with intelligence agencies per se, only those that serve "the capitalist side." The Soviet KGB is fine, Agee has said, except that it is too timid. These and other extraordinary views Agee shared in an interview with Swiss journalist Peter Studer. Agee told Studer:

The CIA is plainly on the wrong side, that is, the capitalistic side. I approve KGB activities, communist activities in general .... Between the overdone activities that the CIA initiates and the more modest activities of the KGB, there is absolutely no comparison.

From all available evidence, it appears that Halperin and his IPS associates share Agee's view on this matter. Writing in Covert Cadre, Dr. Powell observes, "A balance sheet analysis of Halperin's writings and testimonies reveals a continuing advocacy of weakening U.S. intelligence capabilities and ignoring the vast intelligence, espionage, and intrigues of the KGB. For Halperin there are, it seems, 'no enemies on the Left.'"

Other researchers concur. Journalist James L. Tyson, in his book, Target America: The Influence of Communist Propaganda on U.S. Media, notes that among Halperin's prodigious output there is "no record of any writings or statements that might be against the Communist line. All the 'studies' of 'national security' conducted by the. Center for National Security Studies and other organizations he has directed have dealt voluminously with the CIA, FBI, and other U.S. security organizations, and have generally attacked their methods and recommended drastic restrictions. But his organizations have never mentioned the KGB or other Communist subversive activities."

As mentioned above, Halperin helped raise funds for the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), an organization that bears closer examination since it has had more than passing contact with IPS and President Clinton's Defense designee. The aforementioned TNI-IPS functionary Tariq Ali has long been a top member of the executive committee of the Fourth International, the worldwide Trotskyite terrorist apparatus of which the SWP is a member. Moreover, the SWP's founding principles declare: "The main specific task of the SWP is the mobilization of the American masses for struggle against American capitalism and for its overthrow." And the June 1973 issue of the SWP's Internal Information Bulletin reads: "As Marxists, we do not believe in individual terror because it underrates the class struggle. We instead believe in increasing the struggle, in mass terrorism!"

Such is the sort of people with whom Morton Halperin has been consorting for many years.

We have only begun to scratch the seamy surface of President Clinton's nominee and, as you can see, it is not a pretty sight. Volumes could be written on the activities of Morton Halperin and his IPS friends to aid and abet every revolutionary, socialist, communist, and pro-communist individual, group, scheme, and movement imaginable. But as important as such an undertaking would be, especially in light of the high position to which he has been named, it would only tell part of the Halperin story. You see, unlike your pedestrian Communist Party apparatchik or run-of-the-mill Marxist ideologue, Halperin has been blessed with the globalist Insider vision of the new world order.

For all his fulminations against the capitalists, the big corporations, and the "Establishment," it turns out that Halperin is himself a veteran member of the very Establishment he loves to condemn. He is, for instance, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the elite one-world-government-promoting outfit run for many years by banker and arch-capitalist David Rockefeller. The CFR has held a virtual monopoly on the Executive Branch of the federal government for nearly 50 years, with its members filling many key cabinet and sub-cabinet posts in both Republican and Democratic administrations.

But Comrade Mort is not some lone enfant terrible who slipped into the corridors of power through a bureaucratic fluke; he is joined there by fellow IPSers such as Paul Warnke, Richard Barnet, Daniel Ellsberg, and Cora Weiss -- all CFR members in good standing. And the new CFR president is none other than Mort's old Pentagon Papers cohort, Leslie Gelb.

Halperin also is a senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the powerful tax-exempt foundation that has been a leading funder and promoter of communist, socialist, and one-world schemes and programs. In addition, Halperin is a member of the editorial board of Foreign Policy, the journal of the Carnegie Endowment, which serves as a major conduit of CFR one-world thought. The Summer 1993 issue of Foreign Policy carries a noteworthy article by Halperin entitled, "Guaranteeing Democracy." Couched in his usual cagey verbiage, the article is, nevertheless, a brazen call for the increasing surrender of American sovereignty to the United Nations under the guise of "guaranteeing democracy" throughout the world. "The international community," Halperin avers, "should establish a process that parallels the provision of the U.S. Constitution under which the federal government should be obliged to guarantee to each state what was in 1789 called a 'republican' form of government." Behind this deceptive appeal to patriotism and sympathy for constitutional principles is a transparent move to establish the UN as a nascent global government. For how else could the "international community" establish the parallel "process" proposed by Halperin except by transforming the UN into a supernational authority over the nation states? He clarifies this a little further on when he writes: "We are now at a historic crossroads; the opportunity to take a giant step toward universal constitutional democracy is here and should be seized." But the rhetorical subterfuge cannot hide the fact that this is a pitch for world government.

According to the Halperin vision, "the United States, the United Nations, and regional organizations should insist on a guarantee clause by which they ensure the maintenance of constitutional democracy. An international guarantee clause will be credible only if key countries, including the United States, commit to using force if necessary to restore or establish constitutional democracy." This, of course, would mark a radical new course for America and the world. Not only would American military forces be at the beck and call of the UN for so-called "peacekeeping," but for the even more dubious objective of "establishing democracy." And Halperin, coincidentally, would be the man in charge, in his newly created post as assistant secretary of defense for human rights and democracy.

As the Washington Times noted, "If confirmed by the Senate, Mr. Halperin would play a major part in shaping post-Cold War defense policies for regional affairs and the growing role of U.S. forces in U.N. operations." That is a truly forbidding prospect.

In view of Morton Halperin's record, it would be an outrage bordering on criminal malfeasance for the Senate to confirm him to any government office, let alone to an important Defense post, and especially one that would give him opportunity to advance his anti-American, globalist schemes.

Readers who wish to oppose the nomination of Morton Halperin should write or call their U.S. senators. The address of any senator is: Senate Office Building, Washington, DC 20510. The Capitol switchboard number is 202-224-3121.

• An unreserved and energetic proponent of unilateral United States disarmament, Halperin suggested, in an October 1961 study for the Institute for Defense Analysis, that the United States should disarm even if the Soviets did not. Moreover, he did not even think it necessary for our security to inspect Soviet nuclear missile bases, production facilities, and other strategic sites. He wrote, "It might be stressed that inspection was not absolutely necessary," and he added, "The United States might, in fact, want to invite the Soviets to design the inspection procedures if they seem interested in them." (A Proposal for a Ban on the Use of Nuclear Weapons)

• "The Soviet Union apparently never even contemplated the overt use of military force against Western Europe .... The Soviet posture toward Western Europe has been, and continues to be, a defensive and deterrent one. The positioning of Soviet ground forces in Eastern Europe and the limited logistical capability of these forces suggests an orientation primarily toward defense against a Western attack." (Defense Strategies for the Seventies, 1971)

• "Every action which the Soviet Union and Cuba have taken in Africa has been consistent with the principles of international law. The Cubans have come in only when invited by a government and have remained only at their request .... The American public needs to understand that Soviet conduct in Africa violates no Soviet-American agreements nor any accepted principles of international behavior." ("American Military Intervention: Is It Ever Justified?" The Nation, June 9, 1979)

• "All of the genuine security needs of the United States can be met by a simple rule which permits us to intervene when invited to do so by a foreign government.... I would argue that a necessary condition of any American intervention, including military intervention, is that it be consistent with a reasonable interpretation of the standards of the United Nations Charter, of international law and of any bilateral agreements that we may have negotiated." ("American Military Intervention: Is It Ever Justified?")

• "Generally, secrecy has been used more to disguise government policy from American citizens than to protect information from the prying eyes of the KGB .... U.S. government officials admit that experts in the Soviet Union know more about American policies abroad than American citizens do." (The Lawless State: The Crimes of the U.S. Intelligence Agencies, 1976)

• "Spies and covert action are counterproductive as tools in international relations. The costs are too high; the returns too meager. Covert action and spies should be banned and the CIA's Clandestine Services Branch disbanded." (The Lawless State)

• "Secrecy ... does not serve national security .... Covert operations are incompatible with constitutional government and should be abolished." ("Just Say No: The Case Against Covert Action," The Nation, March 21, 1987)

• "Standard Form 86 [questionnaire for applicants to sensitive or critical government positions] asks intrusive and irrelevant questions regarding Communist Party membership, prior arrests, drug and alcohol abuse, and private medical information, including mental health history." ("Ending the Cold War at Home," Foreign Policy, Winter 1990-91)

• In opposing government attempts to close the Washington offices of Yassir Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization: "It is clearly a violation of the rights of free speech and association to bar American citizens from acting as agents seeking to advance the political ideology of any organization, even if that organization is based abroad. Notwithstanding criminal acts in which the PLO may have been involved, a ban on advocacy of all components of the PLO's efforts will not withstand constitutional scrutiny." (The Nation, October 10, 1987)

• "Another way the government circumvents the recent legal reforms is by labeling foreigners 'terrorists' based on their political support for guerilla movements Washington disapproves of, such as the Irish Republican Army." ("Ending the Cold War at Home")

• In opposing legislation setting heavy criminal penalties for Americans who deliberately identify undercover U.S. intelligence agents, Halperin maintained that such legislation "will chill public debate on important intelligence issues and is unconstitutional .... What we have is a bill which is merely symbolic in its protection of agents but which does violence to the principles of the First Amendment." (UPI, April 8, 1981)

• Supporting the "right" of The Progressive magazine to publish detailed instructions and designs for building a nuclear bomb, Halperin criticized those scientists "who refused to help the lawyers" fighting government efforts to halt the magazine's publication of this sensitive information: "They failed to understand that the question of whether publishing the 'secrets of the H-bomb' would help or hinder non-proliferation efforts was beside the point. The real question was whether the government had the right to decide what information should be published. If the government could stop publication of [this] article, it could, in theory, prevent publication of any other material that i,t thought would stimulate proliferation." ("Secrecy and National Security," The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, August 1985)

• "I think the Communist Party is like the Republican Party, a political party." (Interview in The Subversion Factor: The History of Treason in Modern America, video documentary by Western Goals Foundation)

• "I think anybody who thinks that the Communist Party in the United States is a serious threat to the security of the United States in any way has not studied the political situation in the United States." (The Subversion Factor)