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ong their way through a tough and uncally unsavorylife.WerBell, by contrast, is a business-abo dabbles in military adven-de only when and as far as it suits, 10. If combat didn't utilitate him, he adot partake of it. His business is supplying weapons, not using them in 257. He specializes in the weapons techniques of counterinsur-wy, which may be roughly defined as the Sopotul supportwen of coups and rebelliont and the like.The way Wribell operates, this is be artending stablished regimee, e of them dictatorships, agzinst and revolt. This political posture vely does not trouble WerBell, it makes him! I have no objection to ctatorship if it serves the interests of country" be says. Particularly if Dareat to those interests is from left. Communism has no place in Western Hemioghere-or in any-cam-ere. I am totally opposed to it. to the aprend of ideological germo toth that it brings."Now and again, WerBell's name into the news: The first issue of a new mucktaking magazine, Scan-s carried an exhaustive story on at movement in an abortive inva-of Haiti in 1969, and WerBell was aded with a major, if uncertain, in the operation. WerBell was ar-sted and indicted after the fiasco, charges against him were dropped. wile six others, arrested were brought to trial. Asked by a friend for an ex-anation, Werbell replied Jauntily. hen you work for the company. take care of you. I'll never hear a word about it." So far be maintains)In December, WerBell hit the r page of The Atlanta Constitution in a shipment of captured enemy weapons bound from Vietnam was de-nded at Eglin Air Force Base. Yor-A notional columnist conjectured ther WerBell or his friends meant to tribute the weapons to rightwing tremist groups in the U.S. WerBell narily denies that. They were mouve-da mata mate. A Lood designer signing and manufacturing is done under federal heense: Silencers, for ex-ample, are outlawed by the National Firearms Act, along with sawed-off shotguns, submachine guns and other vestiges of Prohibition era gangland wars.To manufacture his suppressors, WerBell must pay a special tax of $500 a year. collected by the Treasury Department. The T'ormen also check po-rodically to see that his awesome collection of firearms-over 200 indi-vidual pieces-is properly registered. Apparently the market for suppressors is not very large because, according to WerBell, his firm is the only one au-thorized to manufacture them.WerBell will not discuss the sales or profits of Military Armaments except to say that, after two years of exten-sive research and development (result-ing in a tax loss of a half million dol-lara), the company is now doing very well. It has about 12 employees, includ-ing four machinists who work under the direction of Gordon Ingram, who has charge of the design operation and whose name is on the Model: 11 subma-chine gun that young Mitch demon-strated on the firing range.### 'Cottage Industry'INGRAM WORKS in a well-equipped machine shop-lab attached to the main house on the estate, which Wer-Bell likes to call "the farm." WerBell's office is next door to the shop: Its walls are so loaded with weapons that it is a wonder they do not collapse. There are knives and spear guns and pistols and rifles and machine guns, dozens and dozens of them, some purchased, some won in combat, some presented by the appreciative recipients of WerBell's counterinsurgency techniques.Wer Bell, who has a sense of humor, calls his enterprise a "cottage indus-try" and likens himself to "a country doctor. ... I can fall out of the living area upstairs right down to the office."Upstairs is the domain of his German-born wife Hildegard, a pleasant, gray-haired woman who has bornecultivated by wearing a mustache and occasionally a monocle. Ile often dresses in military clothing of indeter-minate origin, and he embellishes the Image by talking in slightly clipped sentences peppered with military phrases. There is nothing phony in this. Wer Bell has a strong attachment to weapons and to warfare, and he has been around them so long that the ideas and styles they foster are an in-grained part of his personality.He comes by bath his militarism and his antioremmunism honestly. Hie father was an officer in the Russian Imperial army, even though he was born in the United States. "It was a tricky situation," says Mitch. "He was a citizen of both the U.S. and Russia. In those days you could do that."The elder WerBell fought against the Bolsheviks, but before the collapse of the czarist regime he wisely secured an appointment as liaison officer be-tween the Russian and American forces stationed in the U.S. He lived in this country for the rest of his life. putting his early medical training to use in cancer research.A legacy from father is Mitch's barely disguised aristocratic sympa-thies. He has been quoted as saying. "Communism is a substitution of a peasant dictatorship over the aristocra-cy-1 prefer the aristocracy." He is without question an elitist. Not surpris-ingly, his elite is composed of superpa-triots and military men.Mitchell Wer Bell was born in Penn-sylvania, shortly after his Russian-American father and his Scottish-born mother arrived in the U.S. at the end of World War I. His parents traveled a good deal, here and abroad, and Mitch traveled with them, picking up his edu-cation as he went. He got a degree in journalism from the University of Pennsylvania. In World War II. te Joined the OSS, and served with a unit behind Japanese lines in China, rising to the rank of captain and acquiring a taste for guerrilla type warfare he would never lose.Wer Bell moved to Atlanta shortly after the war and went to work in ad-of what he does is no favor.Before long, he was dabbling in Latin American dictatorships. "Before Fidel took over in Cba, we were working closely with Batista." He adds miha grin, "Our function was to keep Batista in power, although the U.S. government was looking favorably on Fidel at that point."From all this, even WerEcil doesn't Loow exactly how, came a passion. force in about commume I decided to devote whatever time I could to antiocommunist activities" ise Laye. "At first it was sort of a hobby, but then it became my main drive in life. Waz: I'm doing now here he ges-tures at the arsenal on his office walls -affords me a damned good living. But the living is not why i do it."### The Heart of ItIN 1948, WHILE anticommunism was sull a hobby, albeit a paying hobby, WerBell purchased the Dobha estate. it installed rudimentary design facilities and began experimenting with weapons of counterinsurgency. weapons he believed had the best chance of preventing Communist takeovers in the small, underdeveloped nations of Asia and Latin America. "I realized ratha in conteneurgency, the pri-mary problem was a lack of depth in weaponry. People say, win the hearts of the enemy, and you'll win the fight! That's a lot of bull. The best way to get their hearts, if they're the enemy, is to shoot 'em and cut the hears out."While he experimented with weap-ocs quietly, to avoid problems with the federals-Wer Bell proceeded with bis personal brand of geopolitics. He made himself available to anticommu-sit regimes that wanted teip in fight-ing off one band of insurgents or an-ether. In the process, he became friendis with a number of Latin Amer-ica's political stronamen. They were delighted to discover a Now Ameri-cano ho felt as they did about the need for stable, andcommunist re-gimes, especially their regimes, andsador to the Organization of American States, became highly exercised over WerBells activities and his hawkish views on the conflet (WerBell opposed a cessation of hostilities and establish-ment of a coalition goverom).Bunker considered trying to tons WerBell out of the country, but noth-ing came of it. Werbell's independent group"-CIA, Texas milionaires or whatever saw to that.Werbell var already pethe in the anti-Castro movement, and he brought beit a sense of death arus discipline that the raviac, bickering boark of Cuban exiles had seldom seen. Perhaps his major anti-Castro exploit was a speed-mat foray into Canariora, on Cube's southern coast. The mission was to drop a swimmer, apparently a spy, off-shore, and to pick up the family of an exile leader. The boat, fiying the Con-federate flag on the radio antena, foundered in high seas, and the raiding party was captured. The Cubans, the story goes, did not know what to make of the brash WerBell, and he and his pals wound up stealing a Castro boat and spiriting some 16 anti Castroites out of the country before they them-selves returned to the Umted States.### Vietnam SuperhawkIN THE LATE '6m. Vorfell turned is attention to Southeast Asia. Ho is, of course, a superfiawk on Vie-nam, and would be happy if the U.S. were airo Sghting communists in sil its neighboring countries. He was in Thalland, "working closely with the supreme command," for months, pro-moting the sales of his weapons and systems. "I showed them things like surveillance equipment and night vi-sion equipment, stuff that lets you sur-prise the hell out of the bastarda."Did he do any fighting himmelf? Wer-Peil chuckles. "I ain't supposed to be shooting the stuff, just demonstrating how to shoot it."Three years ago, Werholl's weapons business beratte promising enough for him to go into it full time. lic organ-ited a firm called Sisnics (for StudiesThere is anticomunist movement, the two lighting Communist messure. If a light man to nor and we nce to win it.Contrary to eysical opinion, Pow Springs was not named in honor Werbell end an enterpris 'an in fact, stay as t frame the community as posible. We hav well stacked, wectically will cient ans fery and sucrurent res Seen, from tie to worry feeling in Powder Springa Werbell clares, "The sell wit, Who care tell 'em I'm prepared to purcha t property if they don't like th He does not flutter from longie however. There is a steady stree visitors and customers, wer as Amorani A lows Werbell's social on Als tenant colubel, flea in frute mainly to see what was now i the shop; be hadn't wenty months, he said, and things awfully quickly around here The I was there, the colon nwapped picas on shiding the State periment of noin puolicy Mahero on bringing the en to It grave, in VietnamWerkell recalls with reling ticular visitor. He came from the Department a few years part, and cording to WerBell, he said, "The tions of the foreiga policies of United States are the bus State Department in Wactungton, of Mitchell Werbel In Fon Springs, Goors WerBell's re "You can't print it it was all in Ar Sazon words" But that was th swashbuckling Werbell The profile WerBell says : ליPRESENT policy that with theory completely. l'eriodIf actions to the contra loudly, they, like Meribells wear can alwayn be suppert himself. Meanwhile, Mitch and bis dependent group" march on4.3