Turning the Tides

By Eugene Elander

The ancient Romans asked the question: "Who will watch the watchers?"
In our own age as we face the scourge of global terrorism, we must also ask a further question: "Who will turn the tides?" Each of us can play a role in answering both of those questions. "Turning the Tides" by Eugene F. Elander has an important message of confronting the watchers in order to "turn the tides".

• Language: English
• Publisher: John McClure
• Release date: Aug 11, 2009
• ISBN: 9781935991038

Eugene Elander

Mr. Elander is an economist and college lecturer, and has been an agency executive director, emergency management consultant, investigator; and former animal control officer, deputy code enforcement and health officer for Farmington, New Hampshire. He and his wife Birgit, who co-authored "The World Click", divide their time between Georgia and her homeland, Gotland, Sweden.For ten years, Mr. Elander published an award-winning weekly newspaper in New London, Connecticut. He has served on the Readers’ Panel for The Hartford Courant, and has authored articles, op-ed pieces, and columns as a freelance journalist. He is now associated on-line with OpEdNews.com and is the president of his own Elander Press.

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Chapter One

Beginnings

I must confess to being an unlikely recruit into the world of intelligence work and counter-terrorism. Of course, perhaps the best recruits are the unlikely ones. What makes my case unusual, though, is that my recruiter and initial handler was Israeli spymaster Isser Harel himself. Perhaps even more unusual are the concrete plans and programs which I developed to prevent and reduce terrorism, particularly terrorist incidents directed against the United States -- and how hard it has been to get those plans and programs considered and then implemented.

Although I am a native New Yorker, from Jamaica, Queens to be precise, my family had moved to Dayton, Ohio when my father was promoted to sales manager of his firm, United Aircraft Products, which was based in Dayton. We had moved to what was then South Dayton, later renamed Kettering in honor of early automotive pioneer Charles Kettering, whose best known accomplishment was the invention of the self-starter. My last two years of high school were completed at Fairmont High there, where I also joined an explorer scout troop and began to enjoy hiking, camping, and even cliff and mountain climbing, ultimately via trips to the Canadian Rockies.

Of course, these pleasurable high school and extracurricular activities had to end with graduation. That Fall, I headed East to Boston with my friend Karl; we were the two Fairmont graduates admitted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge that year. Karl and I drove to MIT in his aunt’s old Hudson, which had such a profound tendency to overheat that our speed was limited not by posted speed limits, but rather by the car’s temperature gauge.

After two years at MIT, though, I found I was not well suited to engineering. I was learning more and more about less and less, and eventually would know a great deal about nothing, as I thought of it. MIT’s required military training did not encourage me to stay, either, as I found I detested the regimentation and control exercised by the ROTC over us cadets. Like many other Techies, I had trouble taking the ROTC seriously, and we often found ways of undercutting that program. For example, on Parade Day, when we were all supposed to strut our stuff under review by military officials, a group of us arranged for Strauss waltzes to be played over every hi fi system in the dormitory adjacent to the parade ground, drowning out all the military commands. Then, there was the loyalty oath which all student cadets had to sign under penalty of expulsion for refusing to do so. My first act of rebellion was to question the wording of that loyalty oath, demanding that I have the opportunity to study it at length. I took a copy with me, and conveniently forgot to ever sign it.

Like many other young people in that era, I had been convinced by my high school guidance counselor that it was my patriotic duty to become an engineer so that we could beat the Soviets in the space race to the moon and perhaps beyond. Upon deciding that the Soviets would just have to be defeated without me, I left MIT and enrolled at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio as a liberal arts major. This allowed me to live at home, socialize with my high school friends who were still in the area, and take courses which really were of interest. What Antioch did not do, however, was to qualify me for any particular job path or career. While I had worked summers at my father’s aircraft company in Dayton, the ROTC experience had convinced me that I did not want to be part of the military-industrial complex. That phrase had been coined by President Dwight Eisenhower in a perhaps-surprising but prophetic warning he issued to the nation, a warning to be wary of the growing power of that emerging power structure.

Upon graduation from Antioch with honors, and with the encouragement of faculty there, I decided upon further study. The University of Pennsylvania accepted me as a graduate student in economics, and even offered me a teaching assistantship at its Wharton School. For the next four years, I studied in Philadelphia, with no time for much else. Graduate school was quite demanding, as we had the best and brightest economics students from all over the world, and there was intense competition. Still, I loved my time at Penn, as well as teaching at Wharton, where budding actress Candice Bergen was one of my Economics Principles students.

In my last year of graduate school, my father died quite suddenly of a heart attack. He had never previously been ill, but, feeling under the weather, went into the hospital for a checkup. While there, a blood clot lodged in a heart artery and killed him. Late at night, our family lawyer called to tell me of the tragedy, and I rushed home to be with my mother in Dayton, and then to attend the funeral in New York. Up until then I had believed that my parents were invulnerable; after dad’s premature demise, I became both more pessimistic and more realistic at the same time. I had learned that life could be fleeting, and therefore to make the most of it.

After returning to Penn to complete graduate school, as my father would have wished me to do, I moved back to Dayton to help my mother, particularly as I was an only child and she did not drive. I began to teach at Miami University of Ohio, which opened a new campus the following year right in Dayton, later named Wright State University. The fledgling school had been named after Dayton’s aviation pioneers, the Wright Brothers, who mostly had built bicycles there. Wilbur and Orville Wright had to go to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina to fly the world’s first airplane, partly because in Dayton they were somewhat seen as lunatics. After a few years at this new campus, I was lured to nearby Antioch College by the offer of a tenure-track assistant professorship. The lively social life Antioch offered was also attractive, in that hippie era of long hair and free love. I had been appointed Assistant Professor of Administration, as the word Business would not have been popular preceding the word Administration at Antioch, which was a radical institution.

It was while teaching at Antioch that I first encountered the world of intelligence agencies. My department chair and I did not get along well, and it became clear that for me there would be no tenure at the end of my track. I had discovered that Antioch was far more permissive towards its students than towards its faculty. So it was time to find a new position, perhaps even outside of teaching, as I felt ready to spread my wings. Then, I happened to see a blind ad in a professional journal looking for writers of tracts and articles on economics.

Having just purchased one of the early Mustang convertibles, I drove up to Ann Arbor, Michigan, home of the University of Michigan, for an interview. I had assumed that the vague want-ad to which I had responded was probably posted by some institute affiliated with that University. However, when I got to the street address given in the interview invitation letter I had received after applying, I found only a small dry cleaning establishment. Entering this shop, I asked for the person who was to interview me, and without further ado the proprietor took me through a curtain in the rear of the shop, then knocked three times on a heavy door which was opened by a young man with close-cropped hair, a style which was unusual then. The proprietor returned to his duties, the door closed, and the interviewer and I were alone.

Chapter Two

Interview

I gave my name to the man in the back room, who replied saying call me Ken, no last name given, and the first name spoken in such a way that I was not sure if it was his real name. Ken invited me to sit down on a hard chair while he went behind a cluttered desk and asked me about myself.

Since my department chair at Antioch was unlikely to provide a good letter of reference, I had already decided that my best bet was to level with the interviewer. Upon stating that I was ready to do something other than teach, Ken said that this was one reason I had been chosen to be interviewed; the other reason involved some writing samples on economic themes which I had submitted with my resume.

Ken then asked how I would feel about writing articles and even books on the capitalist system and the market economy, suitable for translation into several unspecified languages. At that point, it dawned upon me that one of those languages was likely to be Russian, which I asked about pointedly. Ken confirmed that, indeed, my work would be translated into Russian and other Eastern European languages, and that it would have to be slanted to glorify the virtues of capitalism and why it was far better than communism. My potential employer would provide the topics and themes for my writing. Since my minor in graduate school had been comparative economic systems, I began to see more clearly why I was being considered for such a job. But there were some conditions, which Ken then explained to me.

My writing would be anonymous, no name would appear on any work I produced. Some shorter pieces might be read over Radio Free Europe, and it was possible that I would become a ghost writer for some American diplomat or other public official. If my work was effective in the fight against Communism, I could expect a long and fruitful career with the unnamed agency represented by Ken (by then, I believed it was the CIA.) I might even be promoted to field work according to Ken; when I asked the nature of such field work, Ken smiled and said, All in good time.

But I found that I was not having a good time at the interview; the work opportunity being presented was nothing more nor less than propaganda production, and in my naïve view then, such work was improper and deceitful. I recalled the famous adage of George Bernard Shaw, namely that the difference between capitalism and communism was that in capitalism man exploits man, whereas in communism it’s the other way around. There was no way I would become a party to such propaganda production; let each system stand or fall on its own merits, but let it be presented fully and fairly. Of course, I could not say anything like that to Ken, so I had to stall for time and then just get out of there.

I managed to stumble through the rest of the interview, telling Ken I would have to think over the opportunity offered, since it was such a departure from my past work. As I drove the six hours back to Dayton from Ann Arbor, I began to think about why I had had such a strong negative reaction to Ken’s proposal. It suddenly came to me that there was more involved than my distaste for propaganda; my father’s untimely death had been a consideration, if perhaps an unconscious one during the interview.

My father had become more and more aggravated by conditions at his executive job in the military aircraft industry; his company was involved with getting contracts out of the Pentagon, often by techniques which amounted to discreet bribery. I knew, for example, that the company frequently showed Pentagon military brass and procurement officers a good time via a hotel suite maintained for that purpose, well stocked with booze, women, and such entertainments as poker games. My father frequently took dignitaries to the Beverly Hills Country Club, an illegal gambling den in Northern Kentucky across from Cincinnati, Ohio. In fact, on occasion I had been invited to go along on these junkets. Once I understood the nature of these arrangements, and that they represented a quid-pro-quo for defense contracts, I had let my father know what I thought of such arrangements. Surprisingly, he told me he did not like them either, but that was how business was done.

While there was thus no way I would even consider joining Ken and his comrades (perhaps a poor choice of term) in their efforts to make the world safer for America, I still had the problem of likely non-reappointment as an assistant professor at Antioch. For a few weeks, I tried to stroke my department chair, but it was increasingly clear that I would be given notice of non-renewal at Antioch either at the end of this present contract year, or perhaps with a terminal one-year contract if the school wanted to be kind. I did not want to accept such kindness, particularly as, at small colleges, bad news travels fast, and I had no doubt that I would become a pariah before the end of that school year.

Deciding to move back East, now that my widowed mother was planning to return to New York, I began a serious job search, deciding that I would not accept any appointment below the rank of associate professor, which would be a promotion. But such jobs were not easy to find, especially late in the school year. Still, there were a few openings, and I employed an academic placement agency staffed with top head hunters to find such an opportunity. After a few weeks of searching by the agency, an available business department chairmanship was located at a new college in South Jersey.

Chapter Three

Atlantic County

Bidding a not-so-fond farewell to Antioch and to Ohio, I moved to Brigantine, New Jersey over the Summer, beginning my new duties as Business Department Chair at Atlantic College that Fall. The college was brand new then, located in the pine barrens about a half hour West of the shore, and I was a member of the charter faculty as we were called. The campus consisted of several low yellow-brick buildings, and several of its roads were not even paved yet. I was assigned the supervision of about a dozen full and part time business and economics teachers, as well as steering my division through the college’s initial accreditation. During that first year, I had time for little else.

Having always had the dream of living on a lake or bay, I had found a house on West Shore Drive in Brigantine, a fairly large island just North of Atlantic City, to which Brigantine was connected by a causeway and bridge. The island was relatively under-populated then, with a four mile undeveloped beach at the far end and a lot of open space left. In the Spring, sea turtles would come up to lay their eggs in the abundant sand. Brigantine was then truly lovely, a jewel of a place on the South Jersey shore. But it was threatened.

Atlantic City, Brigantine’s neighbor, had been sin city for many decades, ever since its decline as a Summer watering hole for New Yorkers and Philadelphians. In the old days, my parents and I had spent several weeks each summer at Atlantic City’s Claridge Hotel, until we moved to Ohio. Atlantic City's elegant hotels, outstanding shops and restaurants like Captain Starn’s, and the annual Miss America pageant had made Atlantic City a vacation treasure. But, America was changing, and so was Atlantic City, which was in the process of turning into the vice center of the Northeast. Gambling was available at the Elks Club, drugs and prostitutes were available along the Boardwalk and adjacent Atlantic and Pacific Avenues, and political corruption was commonplace and largely overlooked.

Perhaps none of those undesirable sides of Atlantic City would have impacted me had I not determined to start a hotel-motel management program through my department at Atlantic College. Having studied the area even before moving there, I had noted a real shortage of good, well-paying jobs with career paths. There seemed to be significant labor exploitation in South Jersey, and when I raised the need to do something about it with college administrators, I was usually told, well, that’s the way it’s always been. However, those same administrators agreed to introduce my proposed program in hotel-motel management as part of our business curriculum. I hoped to provide students both job opportunities and a real career path.

Naturally, such a community-based program needed to have an advisory committee, and I recruited a number of top executives in the local recreation and entertainment fields to serve on that committee. What I did not realize was that most of my recruits were connected in one way or another with the rackets so popular in Atlantic City. Indeed, some of my superstars on the advisory committee turned out to be capos and even higher officials of the Philadelphia organized crime syndicate. These members then recommended others of their ilk to serve on the committee, so that, unknown to me, it soon turned into an arm of the Philadelphia and New York crime syndicates.

Probably, none of those facts would have come to light were it not for the initial overtures aimed at having legalized gambling come to Atlantic City. The gambling interests were then only beginning to make the case for a Las Vegas East, allegedly to save that crumbling city. It would take some years, and a lot of money spread around in the right political and other places, before gambling casinos would be approved for Atlantic City – but the groundwork was already being put in place, and I became a major obstacle to that groundwork…

The casino interests had been putting out feelers to Atlantic College for some kind of endorsement of legalized gambling as an economic development project. Besides the general feelers to our President and Deans, I had been approached via the hotel-motel advisory committee, using the pretext of job creation and income enhancement for the entire area. Having been to Las Vegas several times, I found that city to be crime ridden, corrupt, and ruled by the mob. I did not want Atlantic City to turn into another Vegas. Further, my analysis showed that while casino gambling would raise significant revenue for the State of New Jersey, little of that revenue would extend beyond the boardwalk in Atlantic City. Rather, funds would be diverted elsewhere, while the poor city would have to absorb the costs of much more police and fire protection, crime prevention, addiction services, and the other inevitable costs of major gambling operations. So I was strongly opposed to having casino gambling come anywhere near Atlantic County, and I said so.

Meanwhile, I had become first a member, and then a leader, of the Brigantine Jaycees. It was always good form for college staff to become involved in their communities, but in addition, the realtor who had sold me my home on the Inland Waterway was a Jaycees’ vice president who recruited me for the civic group. We met on a weekly basis at the Brigantine Country Club, and I took on several responsibilities for the Jaycees, such as program chair and fund raising organizer. Indeed, I was selected by the New Jersey Jaycees as an Outstanding Young Man of America in my second year in Brigantine.

The next Fall, I was asked to chair the program for the New Jersey Regional Jaycees annual convention, which brought together all of the clubs in South Jersey, usually at the Atlantic City Convention Center. Putting the conference program together required the selection of outstanding and inspirational speakers, who were supposed to motivate members to new levels of achievement, as well as to doing more for each club. My pick for keynote speaker was a crusading prosecuting attorney who was unalterably opposed to legalized gambling and made a strong case against casinos expanding beyond Las Vegas. Little did I know whose toes I was stepping on, until the Regional Jaycees Board vetoed my choice of speaker as too controversial. This really meant that the gambling interests who had permeated the Jaycees, as they had done with my advisory committee, would not tolerate any anti-gambling crusaders speaking at the annual convention. While I reluctantly accepted the Board’s decision, in my naiveté I did not really understand it. Nor did I understand then that, by even recommending an anti-gambling speaker, I had indeed sealed my fate in South Jersey.

The challenge now became finding another outstanding speaker who would be a draw to boost attendance at the regional Jaycees annual convention on very short notice, as by the time the Board had vetoed my first choice for keynote speaker, the convention was only a few weeks away. Invitations had to be printed at once, along with publicity in all news and feature media which had to be begun. I began to contact New York and Philadelphia speakers’ bureaus for a dramatic keynoter available on very short notice, yet affordable. I luckily secured, as our speaker, the Israeli spymaster Isser Harel, the man who apprehended top Nazi official, Adolf Eichmann, the designer of Hitler’s Final Solution to destroy all European