Soldier of Fortune’s Robert К. Brown
Ьу Ward Churchill
Covert Action Magazine No 32 – Summer 1989
Editors’ Note: Since this article first appeared in CAIB Number 22, Fall 1984, Soldier of Fortune‘s role in the Nicaragua contra war has grown. SOF members have funded and trained the contras, in violation of the Neutrality Act, while the U.S. government looked the other way. Testimony in the Iran/contra hearings showed that Robert Brown worked with John Singlaub and Robert Owen to equip and train the contras.
There is a law in the United States (Title 18 U.S.C. Sec. 959) popularly known as “The Neutrality Act.” It reads in part:
”Whoever, within the United States … retains another … to go beyond the jurisdiction of the United States to be enlisted in the service of any foreign prince, state, colony, district or people as a soldier or a marine … shall be fined not more than $1,000 or imprisoned not more than 3 years or both.”
Robert K. Brown, editor and publisher of a magazine titled Soldier of Fortune: The Journal of Professional Adventurers, based in Boulder, Colorado, says he is not in violation of this law, nor of any others. Yet, since 1975, Brown has been running classified advertisements in his magazine such as the following:
EX ARMY VET, Viet 65-66, 217 Cav., 37 yrs. old, seeks job as merc or security. Combat experience. Good physical condition. Will travel worldwide. You pay expenses.
He has also run full-page display ads featuring color reproductions of official Rhodesian National Army recruitment posters on a gratis basis and interviews with individuals like Major Nick Lamprecht, former Rhodesian National Army Recruitment Officer. Earlier, he financed the start-up of his magazine through the selling of “overseas employment opportunity packets” consisting of enlistment materials for the armies of Rhodesia and Oman.
Bob Brown in Person
The aura of Soldier of Fortune‘s proprietor is, on its face, so absurd as to virtually command dismissal by the serious minded. The notion of a middle-aged man with a congenital back defect and a hearing impairment scurrying about the streets of Boulder wearing the latest in camouflage fatigues and military berets is immediately laughable.
But there is another aspect to Brown and his enterprise which tends to be overlooked. For starters, two of Soldier of Fortune‘s staff editors have been killed while performing what can only be regarded as outright mercenary activities in the field:
- George W. Bacon III: The magazine’s underwater combat editor who died in a 1976 ambush; he was a combatant fighting for Holden Roberto’s CIA-sponsored FNLA in Angola.
- Michael Echanis: Martial arts director, killed in a bomb blast aboard an aircraft in Nicaragua while serving as military advisor to Anastasio Somoza and as tactical commander of the National Guard in late 1978.
The Sandinista bomb which claimed Echanis also killed his assistant, Charles Sanders, and a Vietnamese on U.S. green card alien status known as “Nguyen Van Nguyen.” Nicknamed “Bobby,” he had long worked for the CIA and Special Forces. Around Soldier of Fortune they showed copies of a cable from Secretary of State Vance to Echanis asking that he be careful to spare non-combatants in the course of performing his duties.
Investigations Thwarted
This combination of circumstances led Colorado Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder and others to call for an investigation into the activities of Brown and his subsidiaries under the Omega Group, Ltd. (apparently named after the anti-Castro terrorist group, Omega Seven).
Schroeder’s demands in 1976 and 1979 met with a curious response from the U.S. Department of Justice. Justice informed Schroeder that Brown and his cohorts had been placed under investigation, and that the investigation would continue until the activities being investigated stopped. Details could not be divulged. Hence, the result was to clamp the mantle of official secrecy tightly about the individuals and organizations involved.
Links to the CIA
Brown is particularly touchy on this subject, branding it “pure bullshit.” However, the record shows something different. A 1962 letter reveals that Brown spent 1954 to 1957 as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army’s highly selective and secretive Counterintelligence Corps, which has extremely close linkages with the CIA.
Brown re-entered the Army in the late 1960s as a Special Forces captain. Posted to Pleiku, Vietnam, he headed a detachment supporting a Special Forces/CIA joint venture code-named MACVSOG (Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, Studies and Observations Group). The unit ran highly secret missions into Cambodia, Laos, and North Vietnam. Brown’s detachment was also involved in NLF/NVA political cadre identification for liquidation by the CIA’s “Operation Phoenix.”
Expanded Activities and Central America
Since the rebuff of Schroeder’s inquiries, Brown and Omega Group have become increasingly brazen. In 1980, the magazine began to sponsor annual conventions. The first presented a “Bull Simons Freedom Award” to Vang Pao, former head of the CIA’s clandestine Hmong guerrilla army in Laos.
The organization’s real focus has shifted to Central America. In 1983, Omega Group sent a team to El Salvador, including:
- Colonel Alexander McColl: Former SOG member and CIA liaison officer.
- Captain John Early: Former Special Forces A Team commander and mercenary.
- Captain Cliff Albright: Former pilot for the CIA’s Air America Company.
- John Donovan: Former SOG member and owner of Donovan’s Demolitions.
- Peter G. Kokalis: Former member of U.S. Army Intelligence.
The purpose was to provide training for the Atlacatl Regiment. Instruction included the tactics of ambush, patrol, and airmobile operations. Brown has now publicly offered to replace U.S. Army personnel in El Salvador with professional cadres of his own choosing—an offer accepted by Salvadoran leader Roberto d’Aubuisson.
Conclusion
It seems evident that the supposedly “private sector” activities of Robert K. Brown and Omega Group are an integral aspect of the covert means through which the United States government asserts hegemony. The fundamental reality is best summed up by a poster in the Soldier of Fortune office featuring a vulture: “Killing is our business, and business is good.”
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