[104-10221-10022.pdf — page 84]
14-00000elaborat system, and it's not 'th it.can't hear the bolt noise /way in a.combat situation, so for all prae- tical purposes the firing is soundless. Often, the loadest noise is when the bullet hits home. If it hits a human. it makes a peculiar, thunking sound, like hutting a watermelon."'Compulsive Warrior'ITCH WERBELL sounds completely matterof-fact, when he talks about firearms, and death, and with reason, lie has been in the mili tary hardware business for years.. and he has either heard or prontuant-er boin-the-thunking watermelon-sound many times-in Latin America and Somheast Asia, in the US. armed forces and as a paramilitary "adviser." He is a compulsive warrior, an armed crusader fighting against "ungodly communism."Wer Beil is not alone in this occupa Lion, but he practices it in a unique manner. Most soldiers of fortune are nothing else, and they live from one little war to the next, brawling and boozing their way through a tough and financially unrewarding life.WerBell, by contrast, is a business man who dabbles in military adven ture only when and as far as it suits 4. 11 combat didal titillate him, he wouldn't partake of it. His business is supplying weapons, not using them in anser. He specializes in the weapons and techniques of counterinse sency, which may be roughly defined as the forceful suppression of coups etat, rebellions and the like.The way Wer Bell operates, this means defending established regimes, some of thein dictatorships, against armed revolt. This political posture not only does not trouble Wer Bell, it pleases him. "I have no objection to dictatorship if it serves the interests of the country," he says. Particularly if the threat to those interests is from the left: "Communism has no place in the Western Hemisphere-or in ary hemisphere lam totally opposed to it, and to the spread of ideological germs and fifth that it brings."and again, WerBell's name the news. The first labue ofCorporate SetupTHE HEADQUARTERS for h.. 1 work, the former Dobbs estate, is on Highway 360 just outside of Pow- der Springs in a remote section of Cobb County. Actually, corporate headquarters is in Washington, in a firm called Environmental Industries, Inc. a neat euphemism for a company dedicated to killing people. Environ- mental Industries, WerBell says, is bankrolled by some of the East's most prominent investment houses; he is its director of international operations, He is also president of a subsidiary called Military Armaments t'n, Inc., and because he is in Powder Springs, Military Armaments is there, too. (Be hind Environmental Industries, Wer Bell says, is "a third shadow of which El. is a subsidiary"-another tantaliz ing hint of the CIA.)Military: Armaments may well be a unique Américan; enterprise. Nobody eise, WerBell says, is in the business of designing special purpose weapons on such a scale. A good deal of its de signing and manufacturing is done under federal license. 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 WATSTo manufacture his suppressors, Werkell must pay a special tax of $500 a year, collected by the Treasury Department. The Timen also check pe riodically 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 lars"), 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- nund Mitch demon-> [Figure] Mitchell WerBell dresses the part ot his private arsenal in Georgia, where he makes specialized light weapons for the ES. Army and other counterinsar-WerBell six children and put up with his rather unusual way of life. (When he left for the Far East in 19et he said he'd be gone for a year or more, and he was.)A Military ProfileITCHELL WERBELL is a short. My man of a quick with quip and quite sensible until he begins talking about communism or other so cial Issues. He has the face and bear- ing of a Prussian officer, an, image he cultivated by wearing a mustache and occasionally a monocle. He often dresses in military clothing of indeter minate origin, and he embellishes the image by talking in slightly chopped sentences peppered with military phrases. There is nothing phony in this. WerBell 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 both his militarism and his anticommunism honestly. His 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. "Ile was a citizen of both the U.S. and Russia In those days you could do that."The elder Wer Bell fought against the Bolsheviks, but before the collapse of the czarist regime he wisely secured an appointment as liaison officer bes tween the Russian and American forces-stationed in the US. He itved in this country for the rest of his life putting his early medical training ta use in cancer research.A legacy from father is Mitch's barely disguised aristocratic sympa ..:geney forers oround the world. Beside him is his son. Geoff. The breers were only temporary, while Her Bell recovered from e leg injury.vertising in a department store. Soon he was head of the department, and soon after that he went on his own,in the mids, WerBell pulled out his agency and then formed his oun public relations form "d already been drifting into internationa! PR," WerBell says, using my fannly dark- ground. I had tremendous contacts in Eumpe, and I moved into the Far East, too. How much of this moving in was military. WerBell won't say, but his business took en more and more of what he calls a "geopeinseat" CaverBefore long, he was dabbling in Latin American dictatorships, "Before Fidel took over in Cuba, we were working closely with Batista." fie adds with grammar function was to keep Bausta to power, although the US. overament was looking favorably on Padel at abat point."From all this, even WerBeil doesn't know exactly how, came a passionate concern conce about comarunism. "I decided to devote whatever time i could to anticcismunist activities," he says. "At first it was sort of a hobby, but then it became my main drive in life. What Is dong now-here he ges- tenes at the arsenal on his office wails "altords me a damned good living. But the living is not why i do it."The Heart of It.IN 1945, WHILE anticommunism was still a baby, albeit a paying hobby, Werbell purchased the Dobhs estate. He installed rudimentary design facili hes and negan experimenting with seapons of counterinsurgen, weap ons he beled had the best chance of preverin Communist takeovers in the small, underdeveloped naltons ofwho had both the savvy and the guts to help preserve them.fully at thr Inssam models toward making them sta merit of merican soldiers, if pens, ti inancial auereas of Armaments wid presumat sured. According to data u the firms, the higram shorter, Ughter and capabic o ing more firepower than כהס the market. They are alse, says, ideal for secret agents snugly into a dispatch c Armaments makes the cas plete with suppresser and zipes.Busines a BusinessHis first major paramilitary opera DOES WERDELL tion was in the Dominican Republic during the 1963 revolt, lle was, of course, on the side of the government, which was fending off allegedly Com- munist insurgents: the United States was on its side, too. WerBell wound up in the midst of the fighting. He was the second Dominican government man to reach the Orama River, scene of the major battle.Ellsworth Bunker, then U.S. ambas sader to the Organization of American States, became highly exerrised over WerBell's activities and his häwkish views on the conchet (Werbelt opposed a cessation of hostilities and establisn meat of a coalition government).Punker considered trying to fos WerBell out of the country, but noth ing came of it. Werbell's "independent group"-1.1. Texas milionaires or whatever saw to that.Werbell was already active in the anti-Castro movement, and he trought to it a sense of dash and discipline that the ragtag, bickering bunch of Cahan exiles had seldom seen. Perhaps his major anti-Castro exploit was a sperd boat foray into Camarioca, on Cuba'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 beat, flying the Con federate flag on the radio antenna, foundered in high seas, and the raiding party was captured The Cubans, the story goes, did not know what to maku of the brash WerBell, and he and his pals wound up stealing a Castro twat and spiriting some is anti Castrosies cut of the country before they them. selves returned to the United Statecontact about pr world with such dealty and weapons No "i we no r concerned," he "We a certain praluct that is unt a part of the civilized world propie exist, there's going arms business. I don't see ence between our app: combatants and house supplying cause to the wounds influird3 sumira There is his onlin מן ותפוח Werdell i Communist hispace: it in a must be won and weaponив to win 11.Contrary to cyniral opinber Springs was not named in WerBell and his enterprise In fact, stays an alon! fr community as possible. ilet well-stocked, 11 14 practically cimat save for orrashmo grocery and liquor store been, from have to time on feeling in Powder Spring clares, "The hell with a h tell 'c'm prepared to pare property if they don't is ite does not suites from however. There is a stead visitors and customers, well as Ammeroraps. A l٢٠١ Wet heti's mon in law, an traant clapel. Er in it mainis to see wh the shop: he badet bren אל monthe, he said this Awfully qurais around here I was there the evinged en swapped as on Pisithash partment of nowin pola on bringing the my to