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# Mitch WerBell: Gunsmith to the 'Right' SicBy Roger WilliamsThe following is ercerpted by pre-mission from *Atlanta* magazine,DOWN THE DRIVEWAY that snakes through the country estate came two teenage boys. They were clean-cut and handsome in the traditional college fashion, and they looked at home in the quiet, leafy setting. But one wore a camouflage suit and carried a large pistol in each hand, the other had an M3 "grease gun" tucked under one arm and a slender equipped sniper rifle under the other.Behind them, propelling himself victoriously in a wheelchair, came their father, Mitchell Livingston Werbell III of Powder Springs, Ga-soldier of fortune, militant anticommunist and one of the nation's leading developers of military weapons and accessories.Mitch IV and Geoff chatted lightly about the weapons they were carrying. Their father, temporarily immobilized by a fractured heel, punctured the conversation with rapid bursts of information about the sniper rifle, one of his most choice products. "This weapon had killed 1,900 VC in six months," he said proudly. "Those VC took only 13 rounds per kill. Twenty-seven cents apiece they cost Uncle Sam. That's the greatest cost effectiveness the Army's ever known".Moments later, young Mitch and Geoff pumped round after round from the weapons into the bullet shattered hulk of an automobile that serves as the primary target on the WerBell firing range. Then Mitch began firing a pistol, a standard Army 45. The gun roared upward and the noise echoed across the fields and treetops. De then picked up a strange, smoothly rectangular handgun, an Ingram Model 11, equipped with a "flash and-muzzle suppressor," and began firing it. The muzzle barely moved, and the only sound was a metallic click, followed by the song of the bullet and the pop as it hit the target.The effect was eerie, almost chilling, especially when young Mitch put in a clip on a tall automatic and whipped off 54 chirking rounds in one second. Geoff provided the same kind of demonstration with the grease gun, a standard military submachine gun and the sniper rifle which WerBell calls the NM-21 and which is also equipped with a suppressor.On the way back to the house, Werbell explained why the suppressor, commonly called a silencer, is so effective as a firearm accessory. "It hides the muzzle flash and reduces they firing signature so as to have metal on metal," You can't do that!nir weapons given to him by friendly forces in Vietnam, he said, and they were shipped to the States for display in military museums.Not surprisingly, WerBell has often been called an operative of the Central Intelligence Agency, a charge that angers him only when it is leveled too vehemently. It is not that he has anything against the CIA. He just doesn't, he says, happen to be one of its boys. His paramilitary work, which consists of advising and sometimes directly assisting foreign governments, is done in the employ of what he calls "an independent group of well-intentioned, patriotic Americans." The Birch Society? The Minutemen? A bunch of far-right Texas millionaires? WerBell won't say, other than to insist that it is not the CIA.It hardly matters, for according to WerBell, it is all in the service not only of freedom and anticommunism, but of the U.S. government; he does not supply or advise or fight for regimes not bearing the State Department seal of approval. A heavy percentage of his merchandise goes directly to the U.S. government, which distributes it to its own forces that need silent or exotic weapons. The balance is sold to friendly governments, either directly or through the good offices of the "independent group." He says he does not sell to individuals, not even if they're certified anticommunists.Werbell-takes pains to point out that he is no ordinary arms broker. That is, he is not one of those shadowy figures who sell weapons to both sides at exorbitant prices or who take possession of contraband shipments on the high seas. "We've always adhered to a basic policy: There is only one friend of the United States in a given area, and we deal only with that friend."What does WerBell peddle? A range of firearms from machine guns to desk-sized cannons, from the meanest-looking weapons to innocent looking swagger sticks that fire a bullet or even a small rocket; an array of techniques "systems," he calls them that will help an American soldier or a foreign army hold off insurgent forces, and occasionally, his personal services.These services, present WerBell at his most shadowy Serving as a combatant in the armed forces of a foreign nation is against U.S. law, and WerBell is understandably reluctant to admit having done so. He describes himself in such terms as "paramilitary" and "adviser," but acquaintances suspect he has been in the thick of the fighting a number of times. 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