Wackenhut offers an interesting case study in the evolution of counterterrorism as a private - and salable - product. Founded in 1954 by George Wackenhut, a former FBI agent, and four colleagues from the bureau, Wackenhut became the leader in private counter-subversion by the mid-1960s. According to a 1965 prospectus issued by the company, it had by then compiled a file with the names of some 2.5 million suspected dissidents. After acquiring the holdings of Karl Barslaag, a one-time HUAC staffer, Wackenhut could boast of the largest, privately held files on suspected subversives in the nation.
George Wackenhut packed the company's board with ideological soul mates, many of them members of the John Birch Society and ASC. Each month during the 1960s, the Wackenhut Security Review, the corporation's house organ, attacked the alleged excesses of the antiwar movement and student radicalism, earning it accolades from a number of ultraright organizations. The October 1967 edition of the Security Review reported on a meeting of the Organization of Latin American Solidarity (OLAS) under the heading "COMMUNISM AND YOU!" The Review warned its readers that Castro was exploiting racial turmoil in the United States for his own revolutionary ends, hoping to unify "American Negroes" against imperialism.
The bulk of Wackenhut's business is in the provision of basic security services. This is low-margin business, however, and TWC and its rivals have been searching for better opportunities. One pursued by TWC has been strikebreaking - the provision of advice, scabs, and protection - a new line that fitted the Reagan-era demands and the Wackenhut tradition well. Another has been counterterrorism. Wackenhut provides advisory and protective services to hundreds of wealthy individuals worldwide, and in September 1986 it established an antiterrorism division to be run by former CIA, FBI, and State Department agents.
Wackenhut is deeply involved in security operations in Latin America, with subsidiaries in Ecuador, Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador, Peru, Paraguay, Chile, and Guatemala. Most of its activities in these countries are not on the public record, but it is known that Wackenhut provides security to many U.S. and other embassies and to numerous private individuals and organizations who feel threatÂŹened by violence. It is also claimed by some members of the industry and by journalists that Wackenhut trains and cooperates with both official and paramilitary forces in Central and South America. According to Jefferson Morley, several employees of Wackenhut recently worked on an elaborate scheme to help death squad members kidnap the U.S. ambassador to El Salvador, Edwin Corr. The rightists evidently hoped to place the blame for the event on the FMLN. TWC also maintains close ties with the governments of Saudi Arabia and Argentina, and provided personal security for the shah of Iran when he fled to the Bahamas.
Wackenhut obtained special permission to operate in Belgium in 1977-78, and quickly got involved with right-wing terrorists who were themselves linked to state security agents, leading to the eventual departure of TWC from that country. TWC hired a number of right-wing thugs, including Marcel Barbier, an anti-Semite and member of the fascist Westland New Post (WNP). Barbier was involved in a spree of killings in the early 1980s and was convicted in 1987 for a double homicide committed in 1981. Barbier had been the guard of a Jewish synagogue on the Rue de la Regence in Brussels on behalf of Wackenhut when it was bombed in 1982. In August 1983, a search of Barbier's home disclosed that he had maps showing the plan of the synagogue, with details of points of access. Wackenhut's local director in Brussels, Jean-Francis Calmette, was himself a rightist and arms enthusiast, who not only hired but gave instructions on methods of combat to members of WNP. In the earIy eighties, it was reported in the press that Wackenhut guards were regularly luring immigrant children into basements and beating them. TWC left Belgium shortly after these disclosures.
