Nixon-era panel envisioned terrorist attacks

[Namelessv1]

(Full Article) Sunday, January 23, 2005 Posted: 12:48 PM EST (1748 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Nearly three decades before the September 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.

[Jay]

hindsight is always 20/20.

[k_rock923]

It's like that Tom Clancy book Debt of Honor, in which a plane crashes into the capitol during a joint session and kills everyone in both houses, the president, and all nine justices. The VP was the only one left. It was written in the 1990s

[Mattress]

you know, that actually might be quite refreshing.
Not that I wish death on anyone in charge of the government but it'd be quite a shake up to have everyone at that high level of authority replaced all at once.

[Jay]

power vaccums are rarely good. If we had a complete turn over of government officials I would imagine it be more caotic. Historically this is how dictators and facists get into power.

[k_rock923]

well, the VP was still left so he became the new president (Jack Ryan for anyone who has ever read a clancy novel). He's not a politician which is the point of it i think and he has to rebuild the government.

[MidnightViper88]

I didn't know Nostradomus worked for the US government...