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Soldier of Fortune MagazineWed, 10 Nov 1999
Extrait :
Group: Soldier of Fortune
File Name: sof.txt
Last Updated: 9/89
Principals: Robert Brown, ed/publisher; Brigadier General Harry
"Heine" Aderholt, USAF (ret.), contrib ed; Peter Kokalis, tech ed;
Alexander M.S. McColl, contrib ed; Jim Graves, mng ed; John Coleman,
sr ed; Craig Nunn, art director; Contributing eds: Col. Chuck Allen,
Bill Bagwell, William Brooks, William H. Northacker, James P. Monaghan,
Maj. Robert MacKenzie, Barry Sadler, Duke Paris, Dr. John Peters,
Jim Leatherwood, John Donovan, Dana Drenkowski, Evan Marshall,
Al Venter, Galan Geer.(
Omega Group, Ltd (parent group of SOF): Robert K. Brown, pres;
Alexander M.S. McColl, dir, Special Projects; Zada L. Johnson,
exec dept mgr.(5,
Category: Paramilitary, Service
Background: Soldier of Fortune magazine began production in 1975.
Labeled as "The Journal of the Professional Adventurer" by the
group itself, the magazine has grown from a small quarterly
publication to a monthly magazine with a circulation of 180,000
(as of 1985).(1,7)
SOF's parent organization is the Omega Group, Ltd. Robert K. Brown
is also the president of Omega Group, Ltd.(
In addition to publishing
Soldier of Fortune, the Omega Group publishes two other gun magazines:
Guns & Action and Combat Weapons.(1)
Brown helped finance the start-up of Soldier of Fortune by selling
"overseas employment opportunity packages." These packages contained
enlistment information for the army of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), a
country which at the time was run by a white minority government.
Other possible sources of start-up money for the endeavor included
sale of Brown's share in Paladin Press and/or a loan from his mother.(9)
In the 1950s Brown claims to have been a Cuban activist wit pro-
Castro feelings. He became an activist while working on a master's
degree at the University of Colorado at Boulder. His activities
included trying to sell guns to Cubans in Chicago. His "gunrunning"
consisted of trying to sell one Sten gun to the Cubans in Chicago.
He had obtained the gun from a member of the university's shooting
team. Brown said that when he heard the idea, he thought, "Machine
guns plus revolutionaries equals money for Brown." The Cubans couldn't
raise the money for the gun and Brown went back to Colorado. In 1958
he went to Cuba and made contact with Castro people. He waited to hear
back from them but did not. Once again he returned to Boulder.(9,20)
Brown returned to Cuba soon after Castro deposed Batista, this time
as a stringer for the Associated Press. It was then that--according
to Brown--"he began to see that Castro had betrayed the revolution
and had been a communist all along."(20) Although Brown had claimed
to be initially pro-Castro, author Ward Churchill notes that in a
1962 letter to Marvin Liebman, a man linked to several CIA operations
and front groups, Brown revealed that he had been a domestic undercover
operative for the Chicago Police Subversive Squad, gaining entrance
into the "Fair Play for Cuba Committee(s)."(9) Brown also trained
pro-Batistagroups in Florida on how to conduct raids on Cuba,
following his visit to Cuba as an AP stringer.(9)
Countries: ES, NI, US.
Funding: SOF's funding comes from the sale of its magazine. It is
said to be "comfortably profitable."(10) The magazine boasts of a
$6.9 million annual gross revenue.(1)
Activities: Although the group's main activity is the publishing of
Soldier of Fortune magazine, it is the group's mercenary activities
which bring it criticism. Calling themselves "action journalists,"
many of SOF's reporters have come under fire for participating in
the training of counterrevolutionary groups in El Salvador and
Nicaragua. SOF claims to have sent over a dozen training teams to
El Salvador in the early 1980's to train government troops in
sniping, anti-guerrilla urban warfare, explosives and weapons
maintenance.(10,11) The magazine's "Expanded Central America Edition"
(Sept. 1983), which coincided with the group's training trip to
El Salvador, showed a picture of a Salvadoran soldier and two members
of the magazine's group crouching around the bodies of two dead
guerrillas. Robert J. McCartney, author of an article about SOF,
claims that "The picture clearly resembled photographs that hunters
take after they have bagged a deer."(11)
An SOF employee in El Salvador said "We don't hide the fact that we
support one side and follow them into combat. What we don't draw
attention to is that we kill people."(3)
The magazine also solicited funds for the anti-government forces in
Afghanistan.(12)
Two of SOF's staff members have been killed while involved in
"active journalism." George W. Bacon III, an underwater combat
editor, was killed in an ambush in 1976 while fighting for the
CIA-sponsored FNLA in Angola. Michael Echanis, martial arts
director, was killed in a bomb blast aboard a plane while serving
as a military adviser to former Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio
Somoza.(9)
Robert Brown was the source of approximately 10,000 flyers
distributed at the Pan American Games in Indianapolis, Indiana,
August 8, 1987. The flyers offered $25,000 in gold to the first
Cuban or Nicaraguan security operative or intelligence agent who
defected during the Games. In order to collect, the defector would
have to be a member of the Cuban or Nicaraguan Pan American Games
delegation, "including the DGI, DSE, Americas Department, military
personnel and athlete/agents."(4) The leaflets were Spanish on one
side and English on the other. The flyers resulted in no known
defection.(4)
In 1986, Jim Graves, SOF Managing Editor, went along with pilots
Ed Dearborn and Mike Timpani on their mission to deliver a UH-1B
helicopter (named the Lady Ellen after the woman who paid for the
helicopter, Ellen Garwood) to the contras in Honduras.(6) Dearborn
and Timpani were employed by the U.S. Council for World Freedom,
the organization that procured the aircraft for the contras.(3)
SOF journalists have also reported about and traveled with the
Guatemalan Special Forces. According to SOF, the special forces
have been working in Guatemala "to win the confidence of rural
indians..." In Guatemala, the army is working along with Civil
Affairs in a multi-faceted military and psychological operation to
subdue the Highland Indians who had previously been supporters of
the Guatemalan guerrilla movement.(13)
SOF has also offered $1,000,000 to any Sandinista who defected with
an intact and functional Soviet Mi-24 helicopter. Alexander McColl
a contributing editor to Soldier of Fortune said "The whole plan,
you know, is you buy the helicopter for $1 million and then you
turn around and sell it to U.S. or other free-world intelligence
for about $2 million, and then you've got $1 million left over to
buy beans and rice for the troops. That's how it works. You know,
we may be dumb, but we're not stupid. The more profit we make, the
more fun and games we can play in Central America."(14)
SOF also has an annnual convention. It generally draws between
700-1000 people. Major military figures have spoken at these
conventions, including John K. Singlaub and former top contra
leader Edgar Chamorro.(17) Israeli officers in the U.S. for
training have also spoken at these conventions.(7)
SOF organized the El Salvador/Nicaragua Defense Fund. With the help
of the Air Commando Association (of which Heine Aderholt is the
president), SOF sent combat boots, military uniforms and other
non-lethal supplies to the contras. Some $5.2 million dollars of
medical aid has been provided to the contras and the Salvadoran
Army.(15)
Brown paid for reprints of the CIA's manual on guerrilla warfare
and distributed them to the contras inside Nicaragua.(16)
SOF's parent group Omega Group, Ltd. is also involved in other
support activities for "anticommunist" groups.
The Afghan Freedom Fighters Fund is one of these projects. It is
administered by SOF and has been in operation since December 1979.
Since that time SOF readers have donated $150,000. Donations to
this group are not tax deductible according to Alexander McColl
because "we have not convinced the IRS that killing Communists is
an `educational or charitable' activity..."(5)
Another group that Omega Group, Ltd. has backed is the El Salvador/
Nicaragua Defense Fund. Described above, this group provides
"non-lethal" items to the Salvadoran military and the contras.(5)
The group Refugee Relief International Inc.(RRII) was created by
SOF. Tom Reisinger is the president and is also associated with
SOF.(1) The group has sent $4.5 million to the Salvadoran Military
forces.(15) It provides medical training and supplies to the contras
and El Salvador.(1) Its stated purpose is to supply private medical
aid to countries such as El Salvador thereby freeing U.S. foreign
aid to be re-allocated for military aid and other assistance.(15)
RRII medics and doctors travel with the Salvadoran Army treating
wounded soldiers and peasants as part of the army's civic action
program. Singlaub, Aderholt, and McColl all sit on the board of
directors of this group. As a funding pitch the group states "For
the price of a case of beer you can help save a life and get a blow
in at communism at the same time."(1)
Govt Connections: Most of the editors of Soldier of Fortune have
served in the military.
Lt. Col. Robert K. Brown (USAR, ret.) served as an officer in the
counterintelligence corps of the U.S. Army in the mid-1950s. He
left the Army in 1957 but returned in 1964 to receive training in
the Army Reserve. In 1967 Brown was recalled as a captain and
trained for the Special Forces at Fort Bragg. While in Vietnam,
Brown worked with the CIA's Phoenix Program--a program of
counterterror that executed as many as 40,000 South Vietnamese
accused of being members or supporters of the Viet Cong. The CIA
commended Brown for his "outstanding contribution to the Phoenix
Program." Brown was also a commander of a Special Forces team that
advised the CIA-formed army of Montagnard tribes people.(1)
(...)
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