A SHORT HISTORY
OF INCA
A SHORT HISTORY OF INCA
(INFORMATION COUNCIL OF
THE AMERICAS)
by Frank DeBenedictis
One
aspect of anti-communism which has not received the
attention given to
the US conflict with the Soviet Union is the more recent war
with Fidel
Castro and his Communist regime in Cuba. Cuba's conversion
to Marxism
in 1959 caused much consternation in the United States, and
especially
in cities doing trade with that Latin American country. New
Orleans in
particular feared the new regime, and out of this fear a new
anti-communist organization based in this city was born in
1961 called
the Information Council of the Americas (INCA).
By
the 1950s, 75% of US imports from Latin America came through
the
port of New Orleans. Civic and business leaders of the
Crescent City
throughout the decades forged closer business, political and
social
ties with their Latin American counterparts. Fidel Castro's
rise to
power sent shock waves through New Orleans and threatened a
lucrative
mutual relationship. In Tampa, Florida (another large port
city) where
cigar manufacturing played an important part of that cities
industry,
the Cuban Revolution also caused alarms to go off when
Senator George
Smathers of Florida proposed an embargo against Cuban
tobacco. But
Tampa reacted differently from New Orleans.
Instead
of fear and reaction leading to the anti-communist INCA,
Tampa
saw a rise in pro-Castro activity. The Fair Play for Cuba
Committee
started a chapter and in an early 1961 rally proclaimed
Smathers
action, "would lead to unemployment in Tampa." Castro's
revolution
began to take effect in the United States. Three months
after the Tampa
FPCC rally, the Information Council of the Americas would
begin its own
campaign against the changing economic sensibilities of a
Communist
Cuba.
INCA
was founded on May 15, 1961 by public relations professional
Edward Scannell Butler. From the beginning its agenda was
narrowly
focused on Communism as an issue. INCA in fact sought
support from
liberal as well as conservative anti-communists, asking
liberal
anti-communist Smathers to speak at an organization
function. Ed Butler
had prior to the Castro takeover, laid plans for an
anti-communist
organization. But when Castro took over in Cuba, and New
Orleans
expressed growing anxiety over the new Latin American
dictator, the 27
year old public relations man was handed a searing issue and
an alarmed
constituency.
Ed
Butler had an interest in both pubic relations and
psychology, so in
a real sense his organization was not ideologically based,
even though
this public relations man exhibited a penchant for
conservative
politics. He especially expressed admiration for red-baiting
Wisconsin
Senator Joe McCarthy whom he described as a great American.
So Ed
Butler the founder of INCA did have ideological convictions
beyond the
function of INCA, but he put his promotional talents rather
than
politics into the organization. INCA soon evolved into an
effective
propaganda machine under its youthful leader.
Loyola
University archivist Arthur Carpenter expressed
anti-communism
in a realpolitik sense when he poses the question, "Was
anti-communism
a manifestation of popular, democratic sentiment or of elite
interests?" He answers that question in the latter vein,
including the
formation of INCA. Carpenter also describes anti-communism
and the
origins of INCA in a post-World War II context.
Popular
anti-communism as opposed to an elitist based movement died
with the more excessive reactions of Senator Joe
McCarthy in the
early 1950s. Then the writings of historian Richard
Hofstader and
sociologist Daniel Bell dismissed the idea of a popular
anti-communist
movement. They were saying that legitimate anti-communism
could be
properly understood only by the elite; the public should be
encouraged
to divert in other directions. So by the late 1950s the
better known
organizations which had anti-communism as a primary function
tended to
be organs of business, civic and academic leaders. The John
Birch
Society in 1958 was founded by Robert Welch and twelve well
off
business friends in Indianapolis. In 1961 the Young
Americans for
Freedom met at the Connecticut mansion lawn of
National Review
editor William F. Buckley to form that group. INCA came on
the heels of
both of these conservative organizations and had similar
patrician
origins.
Along
with founder Ed Butler, the most important member of INCA
was
famed physician Dr. Alton Ochsner. Ochsner, 38 years
Butler's senior
formed a partnership with his younger colleague which would
last twenty
years. Ed Butler, who didn't have a great knowledge of Latin
American
affairs, benefited substantially from the association with
the
celebrated doctor. Alton Ochsner had an internationalist
outlook---especially when it pertained to the field of
medicine.
Ochsner felt medicine transcended national boundaries, and
had trained
many physician exchange students from Latin America since
the
1920s. His prominence as an international physician
led him to be
elected to leadership of both the International Trade Mart
and
International House in the 1960s. Both business groups
promoted
Latin American trade for New Orleans, and had been founded
immediately
after World War II. Ochsner also was elected to the
presidency of the
Cordell Hull Foundation which administered a program of
Inter-American
university study.
Ochsner
fit the mode of the wealthy educated elite. He was elderly
and
encouraged other New Orleans prominent and wealthy citizens
to join
INCA. Ochsner's persuasiveness helped Ed Butler recruit
United Fruit's
Joseph W. Montgomery, Delta Steamship Line's John W. Clark,
International Trade Mart's William Zetzmann and William B.
Reily of
Reily Coffee Company. The local Catholic hierarchy also
joined with
Archbishop Phillip M. Hannan and Dean of Loyola University
Law School
AE Papale becoming members. INCA also received endorsements
from Mayor
deLesseps Morrison and Congressman Hale Boggs.
INCA's
approach to anti-communism (in addition to being
anti-Castro)
tended to follow a practical approach of containment. This
approach was
not conciliatory, but echoed the realities of American
foreign policy
in the early 1960s with the newly elected Kennedy
administration. Dr.
Alton Ochsner had written a letter to President Kennedy, at
a friend's
request, urging a quarantine of Cuba from shipments of
troops and
military equipment. Yet Ochsner doubted the plea would
matter since,
"many of Kennedy's advisors were leftists." Presidential
advisor Arthur
Schlesinger, Jr. echoing the new administrations desire to
chart a new
course in foreign policy---both with regard to the Cold War
and the
developing nations---called for a new liberal
anti-communism, one that
would be more cooperative with the American progressive
left, and
sensitive to changes in the less rigid post-Stalinist Soviet
Union.
Schlesinger had expressed his opinion that, "a policy
designed for the
age of Stalin was not necessary in the age of Khruschev."
Cold
War containment dominated foreign policy in Eisenhower's
administration. Advisor Dean Acheson was its main proponent,
and the
incoming Kennedy saw it as static and a remnant of the
old order.
When Kennedy became president in January, 1961 he faced a
dilemma since
he inherited the CIA sponsored war against Castro. This war
started
with the Eisenhower administration and continued with
Kennedy,
culminating with the Bay of Pigs invasion in April,
1961.
Eisenhower's vice president and Kennedy rival Richard Nixon
was one of
the first Republicans to make a career out of anti-communism
and also
had been one of the first in his party to support the
Democratic
Party's contrived Marshall Plan. Nixon was not a disciple of
Dean
Acheson either, favoring a more aggressive stand against
Communism. The
Vice President's former membership on the House Committee on
Un-American activities belied the difference between two
types of
anti-communist thought. One was liberal anti-communism which
dismissed
the American Communist Party as a real political danger in
the United
States. The other anti-communist wing was politically
conservative and domestically counter-subversive in its
outlook.
Conservatives saw Communists infiltrating public life and
imposing
"collectivist" values on the population at large. Both Nixon
and the
Information Council of the Americas with its leadership of
Butler,
Ochsner and the New Orleans business elite fit the
latter. Both
Nixon and INCA were also internationalist in outlook. Yet
with the new
Kennedy administration, INCA opted for a containment policy,
since it
was unable to be more aggressive toward Cuba. It directed
its
propaganda energies toward Latin American nationals who had
not fallen
to Communism, but (who) like the New Orleans business
elite
felt threatened by Castro.
INCA
started expanding its bi-directional support lines into
Latin
America. Ed Butler in an interview explained to me that INCA
was, "an
international organization." Nurtured by its benefactor Dr.
Ochsner, it
expanded its list of supporters to include former Latin
American heads
of state. Among them were former Guatemalan president Miguel
Ydigoras
Fuentes, Nicaraguan president Anastasio Somoza, and Juan
Peron, former
president of Argentina. Ochsner's medical prowess made him
revered in
Latin American circles, some of the Latins saw him almost
like a god.
In his early career, Ochsner studied in Europe, practiced in
New
Orleans, set up the Ochsner medical clinic in 1941, and
"cultivated
relations with Latins in New Orleans." While he did profess
at times
extremist personal views toward integration and communism,
historically
these were somewhat offset by his dedication to
internationalism, trade
and medicine.
Fear
of Communism was no less a concern for Ed Butler, Dr.
Ochsner, or
the other prominent INCA members than it was for the many
right-wing
segregationist groups springing up in the South in the early
1960s.
INCA, however, studiously avoided forming alliances with the
segregationists. INCA had never defended segregation.
Its own
rapport with Latin Americans further strengthened this
image, and the
organization made alliances with local anti-Castro Cuban
refugees. Then
in August, 1963 an event proving important to both the
Cubans and INCA
occurred. INCA was to have an encounter in New Orleans with
the future
accused assassin of President Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald.
On
August 5, 1963 Lee Harvey Oswald visited Casa Roca, a
clothing store
managed by Carlos Bringuier. Bringuier, a Cuban refugee, was
one of the
important Cuban exile leaders in New Orleans at the time.
The ex-Marine
offered help to the beleaguered Cuban exiles in the form of
military
training for the purpose of fighting Castro. Four days later
Bringuier
became inflamed when he saw Oswald on Canal Street passing
out
pro-Castro literature, urging "hands off Cuba" and promoting
the Fair
Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC). The two got into a fight and
were
arrested. Again on August 16, Oswald passed out literature,
this time
in front of the International Trade Mart. On August
21, Oswald
joined in a radio debate with Bringuier of the Cuban Student
Directorate, an anti-Castro group and Ed Butler of INCA. The
participants were ready for Oswald, having done some
research on him,
and shifted the discussion to his defection to the Soviet
Union, his
sympathy for Cuba and his professed Marxism. Ed Butler
described
Oswald as an articulate speaker, and well versed in his
topic. But
having looked into the defector's background and
discrediting him, the
INCA director also expressed the view that they had driven
him and the
FPCC out of town.
President
Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, three months
after the New Orleans radio and TV sessions. Oswald was
charged with
the murder. Ed Butler recorded the debate sessions and
produced a new
propaganda tool with two LP records entitled Oswald:
Self-Portrait in
Red and Oswald Speaks. Butler after the assassination argued
Communist
propaganda had incited Oswald to violence. The Oswald
episode also
provided new raw material for yet another propaganda film,
the lurid
Hitler in Havana---which equated the Cuban Communist and
Nazi German
leaders. The film showed graphic accounts of murder replete
with firing
squads and corpses in both totalitarian states. Also the
there was a
split screened sequence showing the rantings of both Castro
and Hitler
side by side. This film went on to blame Castro for
Kennedy's death.
Possibly foreseeing a future spread of INCA out of New
Orleans, Ed
Butler and his organization claimed that if there had been
an INCA
chapter in Dallas, Oswald may have been neutralized and the
president's
life may have been saved.
Louisiana
politics has had a tendency,during certain periods, of not
only being colorful, but spreading beyond the boundaries of
the state
and into the nation. The first example of this phenomenon
was former
governor and US senator Huey P. Long who challenged Franklin
Delano
Roosevelt for the presidency in 1932 and found himself to be
at odds
with the Roosevelt administration many times in the early
1930s. Long
founded the Share Our Wealth Clubs, which originated in
Louisiana and
spread to other states. INCA in the mid-Sixties started
seeing
something similar for its organization. Unlike Long's left
wing group,
INCA made no pretensions to populism. But it did share with
Long a
desire to move its politics out of the South and into the
nation. So
INCA soon found itself in a new partnership with California
contributors such as National Airline chairman Dudley Swim
and more
importantly with Schick Razor executive Patrick Frawley, Jr.
In the
fall of 1966, Frawley underwrote the cost for television
showings of
Hitler in Havana in several large cities. The reaction
proved rewarding
for Butler in New Orleans as several hundred Cuban exiles
rallied at
New Orleans city hall and saluted INCA's film. By this time
Butler had
relocated his home base from New Orleans to practice his
public
relations craft in Los Angeles, the communications center of
America.
Since he felt Oswald was the vanguard of the later student
revolt, he
held meetings to determine what to do---what program would
best expose
the radicals.
Ed
Butler also worried about the Kennedy assassination since
many books
started coming out during this period. He noticed a
predilection among
the new writers to questioned the Warren Report and its
conclusion that
Oswald acted alone in killing Kennedy. Although the
investigation of
District Attorney Jim Garrison occurred in New Orleans
and in
fact implicated Clay Shaw, who at the time was a former
director of the
International Trade Mart, INCA itself never was implicated.
He and
Carlos Bringuier both were very critical of Garrison and his
theory of
CIA and Cuban exile involvement in the assassination,
but INCA's
propaganda instead focused on writer Mark Lane.
Ed
Butler criticized Mark Lane, claiming he had been informed
that Lane
had been associated with several communist front groups
between 1952
and 1967. He had gotten the information by asking Louisiana
Congressman
F. Edward Hebert to get information on Lane from HUAC
committee member
Congressman Willis. INCA's memos showed much concern for
Lane, who was
one of the leading critics of the Warren Commission. Two
INCA leaders
in a public statement criticized Lane's Rush to Judgment and
branded
him an unscrupulous communist. The Garrison investigation
and the
descendency upon New Orleans by Lane and others proved to be
a
distraction for INCA. But the organization continued in New
Orleans,
California and Washington DC with propaganda activities
unrelated to
the JFK assassination trial.
In
a 1968 memo explaining INCA's "programs and plans," a
warning
enveloped in hysteria was issued. Calling for mobilization
of
anti-communists from the left, right and center, INCA
touched on
several issues in this very turbulent year. Described in the
memo was a
resistance to the war in Vietnam in the US, which was
according to INCA
designed to split children from their parents. It spoke of
events
creating urban anarchy, and creating divisions between
blacks and
whites. Assassination was also spoken of in this April 8,
1968 memo
which it describes as being used to divide government from
the people.
The memo went on to talk about the upcoming Democratic and
Republican
national conventions, which warned of "Communist convergence
and
predicted riots. INCA also lambasted black militancy
claiming
"Castroite Black Power extremists" wanted to assassinate
black
moderates such as Roy Wilkins and Whitney Young.
While
in the early 1960s the issue of race was generally avoided
by
INCA, the latter part of the decade proved different. This
memo and
Butler's book Revolution is My Profession outlines this
change of
emphasis brought on by urban riots and campus unrest. In the
memo the
example of race as an issue outside the US is brought out.
The INCA
memo states, "From experience in Malaya and elsewhere,
Communists know
a one-race revolution won't work. If the Communists capture
campuses,
and attack the white sections from these sanctuaries the
outlook will
be very dark for America. Reiterating an old INCA theme in
this memo,
the New Orleans based group called for a mobilization of
anti-communists of the left, right and center.
In
order to counteract the increasing radical and anti-war
activities
on college campuses, INCA set up some of their own programs.
In a
Readers Digest article from January, 1965 the author speaks
of "red
agents" and "front groups" and calls upon citizens to
organize specific
attack forces to "wreck the wreckage." The article brought
up as one of
its examples INCA and the Oswald/FPCC episode in New
Orleans. And it
went at the end to tell its readers how to contact INCA and
get
involved. INCA turned its attention to college campuses. In
St. Louis,
Missouri it set up a booth at the conservative Young
Americans for
Freedom (YAF) national conference. In Chicago at another
conference,
INCA members picketed the Student for a Democratic Society's
national
headquarters. INCA member Dick Warren of New Orleans was
congratulated
by hawkish South Carolina Congressman Mendel Rivers for his
organization's work.
INCA
in the late 1960s took on the image as an all-American
organization which believed in wholesome positive values.
This attitude
nurtured in part by negative New Left rhetoric became
incorporated into Ed Butler's organization with vigor.
Another project
was Up With People (UWP). UWP developed as a singing group
in 1966 and
expressed its desire to work with others, promote
non-violent programs,
and avoid rebellion toward the older generation. INCA
also got
involved in drug education with a program entitled "Drugs
and
Teenagers." The purpose of the proposed TV documentary was
to focus on
why teenagers used drugs. It proved to be another effort by
INCA which
indicated a yearning for the turbulence of the 1960s to end,
not unlike
the so-called "decency rallies" which took place in some
localities
during this time. INCA's lip service to creating
anti-communist
coalitions were not that successful. Butler's organization
did spread
but increasingly sought out and formed alliances with
politically
conservative groups. One of the most important of these was
the Young
Americans for Freedom. The YAF increasingly started
mimicking the New
Left in its tactics. YAF engaged in liberating campus
buildings taken
over by the New Left activists. One YAF activist
exclaimed quite
succinctly, "We don't need all the flag-wavers (referring to
"Old
Right" heroes such as California Superintendent of schools
Max Rafferty
and radio talk show host Joe Pyne). We need people who are
hip to the
media, like [Yippie leader] Jerry Rubin. Increasingly
Ed Butler
found his organization's themes dated when compared to the
YAF, but he
understood the media, imagery of the person, and its effect
on an
audience. So the New Orleans public relations man grew his
hair longer,
wore mod clothing and hosted a television show called the
SQUARE world
of Ed Butler.
Ed
Butler's Westwood village SQUARE started in California as an
auxiliary to the INCA organization. It too was funded by
California
business executive Patrick J. Frawley. Among the persons he
debated
were 1960s radical figures such as Chicago Seven trial
defendants Jerry
Rubin, Tom Hayden, and William Kunstler. Butler also used a
tactic
which he learned from his public relations work which
consisted in
"aping" or copying the opposition. He countered the hippie
"love-ins"
with "SQUARE-ins, and accused the New Left of sponsoring
love-ins to
break down moral values." Butler also organized the INCA
Information
Service to counteract the counterculture and New Left
oriented
Liberation News Service. The object was to give timely
reports of
happenings at universities around the country. INCA's media
proved as
slanted as the New Left media was. At one particular
gathering reported
by SQUARE magazine, Butler sat on a panel with SDS founder
Tom Hayden,
and other 1960s radical figures such as Stu Alpert and Steve
Shapiro.
The radicals chastised Butler and when he rose to speak his
mike cord
was pulled. The radicals got up to leave and Butler's
magazine reported
it with the caption, "the revolutionaries beat an ignominous
retreat."
In
addition to the radical left criticizing INCA's
counterrevolutionary
incursions, the establishment press chided in also. Hitler
in Havana
was roundly criticized in a New York Times review
unflatteringly, "as
the crudest form of propaganda." Dr. Ochsner
complained to his
friend Turner Catledge the executive editor of the Times,
but reported
to Butler, "that we have a real problem when we have to
fight the
leftist press." But INCA had friends on the right such
as Patrick
Frawley, Congressman Edward Hebert (a Congressional Medal of
Honor
Winner), and eventually included in its list of advisors
General
William Westmoreland, Cuban military figure Admiral George
Anderson,
and some intelligence experts such as Herbert Philbrick
(former FBI
agent and subject in the television series I Led Three
Lives), and
Malaysian psychological warfare expert C.C. Too. The
inclusion of the
Asian intelligence expert is revealing since INCA in
addition to
fighting Communism in the Western Hemisphere became
increasingly
involved in countering campus unrest and urging support of
the US war
effort in Vietnam. Butler continuously described the
leftists as
"tyrannists."
A
figure from the early INCA days started complaining about
this turn
of events. Carlos Bringuier, who had earlier debated Lee
Harvey Oswald
with Ed Butler, voiced his support of the U.S. war
effort, but
lamented with concern how Castro had increased subversive
activities
when the U.S. started escalating in the Vietnam war. This
article by
Bringuier appeared in INCA's information service newsletter.
Bringuier
wrote about President Nixon's plan to "Vietnamize" the war,
and urged a
new program on called "Flan Torrienta" which would create an
organization of Latin American nations for the purpose of
countering
Castro's subversion. This article appeared in March, 1970
and is an
early indication of at least one INCA associate expressing a
desire to
get the organization back to its original purpose---which
was to combat
Communism in Latin America.
INCA
rhetoric is described by Arthur Carpenter as "rational but
overwrought and its analysis simplistic." But when one
takes into
account Butler's profession of public relations, the
simplicity, the
reliance on visual symbols and the need for simple but
persuasive
rhetoric Butler's communications style becomes more
understandable. Ed Butler was a salesman at heart, and since
his
constituency was an elite and consequently more prominent,
wealthy and
educated, the message conveyed need not be complex,
philosophical, and
academically inclined. It also didn't need alliances with
other
anti-communist groups on the far right which were concerned
with
segregation and paranoiac conspiracy theories of the variety
talked
about by the likes of Richard Hofstadter in his book the
Paranoid Style
of American Politics. One of Ed Butler's associates during
the late
1960s was Lee Edwards, a former campaign worker for Barry
Goldwater's
1964 presidential campaign.
Edwards
writes in his book Goldwater: The Man Who Made a Revolution
about Goldwater and the attacks made on him by both the far
right and
far left. The Nazi like National States Rights Party labeled
him a
kosher conservative due to his Jewish heritage. Goldwater
had opposed
civil rights programs, but he saw it as a constitutional
issue rather
than as a way to enforce segregation, Edwards writes. In
1964 Goldwater
carried much of the South. It proved to be a seminal event
for this
solidly Democratic area of the nation. Since Butler's
organization's
emphasis was on free trade and anti-communism and not on
race, INCA's
political leanings and refusal to defend segregation
proved to be
somewhat ahead of its time with regard to the region it
originated in.
But Lee Edwards and Ed Butler had other things in common
besides
ideology. Both had promotional skills. Edwards developed his
in the
service of Barry Goldwater, and Butler in the service of
INCA. By the
late 1960s both were now promoting the Information Council
of the
Americas as Lee Edwards became an advisor to the
group. Butler
himself in many debates chastised both the extreme left and
extreme
right. He had debated Frank Colin head of the American Nazi
Party at
one point for the same reasons he took on the New Left.
In
fighting against extremism of both the left and right, and
in his
book Revolution is My Profession, Ed Butler expressed his
plan of
action. Butler's anti-communism was practically rather than
ideologically based. On page 171 he describes "Model
Making...as the
deliberate construction and elevation of a model attitude,
act, fad,
concept, or personality for political purposes. He goes on
to write,
"By capturing or creating peer leaders in entertainment,
sports,
political and cultural figures with whom people can identify
(especially youth) one can control the opinion climate in
America as
clearly as steering a car." Butler went on to use his
nemesis, Kennedy
assassination author Mark Lane and others as an example of
this in
defining books used to exonerate Oswald. Revolution is My
Profession
goes on to say, "In this age of instant idea via mass
telecommunications, simply saying it is (or isn't) so, can
make it so
(or not so).
In
talking about his new profession of Conflict Management
(which is
basically a offshoot of public relations), INCA, and the
coming war
against communism and the media Butler describes the use of
"Truth
Tapes" which his organization made and used Cuban refugees
such as
Juanita Castro (sister of Fidel Castro) to serve as the
voice on the
tape recordings. These tapes were sent to over 15 Latin
American
countries and over 100 broadcast stations. Juanita Castro
and Paul
Bethel of the Free Cuba Committee in Miami, Florida both
were advisors
to INCA. Butler and Dr. Ochsner saw the importance of
propaganda
early in the organizations inception and gave INCA credit in
keeping
leftist Salvador Allende out of power in Chile's 1964
presidential
elections.
Butler's
obsession with the media is apparent in his book, when he
writes, "The media are the delivery system for mental
missiles. The
messages are the warheads, The vehicles are the rockets."
His
experiences in Latin American propaganda show when he writes
in the
book, "Conflict Managers must learn to relate, to articulate
for large
numbers of people. As a spokesman for the SQUARE movement, I
have
learned no one can create fads or trends, but can identify
and
anticipate latent convictions and viewpoints, help verbalize
them and
give them form, content and substance." Butler applied this
knowledge
and used it when in Los Angeles with graphic symbols and
other stimuli
in his magazine as a way to counteract the New Left and
hippie visual
imagery at the time. He referred to the New Left as the
anti-establishment and the hippies as the non-establishment.
He saw
both as being in need of Conflict Management. His INCA
information
service depicted hippie types in derogatory situations.
In
a 1973 New Orleans newspaper article, Ed Butler took credit
for
breaking the defunct SDS, and claimed a victory against
tyranny. But
this article proved to be one of the few jubilant moments
for the
Information Council of the Americas as the 1970s got under
way. INCA's
magnanimous California contributor Patrick Frawley incurred
financial
difficulties and his past generous support was lost. Also
Dudley Swim,
another generous California contributor died. In 1972 Butler
closed the
California operation, and moved back to New Orleans, but met
with
financial difficulties there also. Other things of Ed
Butler's own
doing lost ground for INCA in the early 1970s. Butler and
Ochsner's
weak explanation for the Watergate scandal placed the blame
on the
Communists. It proved to be a pathetic time for the
organization in
this narrow thinking analysis as anti-Castro exile
compatriots and
conservative fellow travelers Frank Sturgis, E. Howard Hunt,
Eugenio
Martinez, G. Gordon Liddy and Bernard Barker all were
arrested,
tried and convicted of the break-in of Democratic
headquarters.
INCA
continued until 1981, its final demise attributed to the
death
of an aged Dr. Alton Ochsner that year. His son
Dr. Alton
Ochsner, Jr. helped start another organization similar to
INCA. The
Caribbean Commission was formed in 1982 by the younger
Ochsner and
several influential New Orleanians. While INCA had
directed its
energies on the Cuban Revolution, the CC concentrated on
Nicaragua.
INCA
proved to make a definitive statement with regard to
anti-communism in its time. Ed Butler in September, 1980,
late in the
organization's history, interviewed president-to-be Ronald
Reagan.
Several years later in June, 1982 Reagan addressed the
British
Parliament. He surprised his supporters and infuriated his
enemies by
returning to the idea of the Cold War as a conflict between
value
systems. Reagan said, "The struggle that's now going on in
the world
will not be bombs and rockets, but a test of wills and
ideas, a trial
of spiritual resolve, the values we hold, the beliefs we
cherish, the
ideals to which we are dedicated..." Reagan went on in the
speech, "At
the same time, we see totalitarian forces in the world who
seek
subversion and conflict around the globe to further their
barbarous
assault on the human spirit. What, then, is our course? Must
civilization perish in a hail of fiery atoms? Must freedom
wither in a
quiet, deadening accommodation with totalitarian evil?"
Reagan presided
over the disintegration of communism. INCA founder Ed Butler
like his
president was a communicator. The reference to Reagan
infuriating
his enemies by taking on an idea of calling the Cold War a
conflict of
value systems, and where communications and not bombs were
the key to
winning the struggle was one not foreign to Ed Butler. His
own style
preceeded the likes of other communications wizards such as
Lee Atwater
and Ralph Reed. While his own propaganda organization was
wrought with
covert activities, some of which we do not know everything
about yet,
he and INCA still proved to be politically effective. An
American
History magazine article showed some of the possible
intelligence links
of Butler to the CIA directly and through the
International Trade
Mart and Cuban Student Directorate members such as his Cuban
exile
colleague Carlos Bringuier. Butler's own ties to INCA, the
trade mart
and possibly to the CIA was peripheral to the Garrison
investigation
of Kennedy's death, and the congressional intelligence
inquiries
that followed. These CIA links may or may not be
true, but
if so would put another interesting footnote in the history
of the
Information Council of the Americas.
Bibliography for the INCA topic:
Michael Zatarain. David Duke: Evolution of a Klansman.
Pelican Publishing Co. Gretna, La. 1990.
"David Duke: Evolution of a Klansman," Reviewed by Lance
Hill. Journal
of Southern History. No. 58. (Feb. 1992) pp.
176-177.
"The Emergence of David Duke and the Politics of Race,"
Reviewed by
David J. Garrow. Georgia Historical Quarterly. No. 76.
(Winter, 1992)
pp. 1018-1019.
"Huey Long: Progressive Backlash?" Matthew J. Schott.
Louisiana History. 1986 No. 27 (2): pp. 133-145.
"The Pine Island Situation: Petroleum, Politics, And
Research
Opportunities In Southern History. Brady M. Banta. Journal
of Southern
History. 1986 No. 52 (4) : pp. 589-610.
"Four Anti-Longites: A Tentative Assessment. Mark T.
Carleton. Louisiana History. 1989 No. 30 (3) : pp. 249-262.
"Huey Long and the Communists." Edward F. Haas. Louisiana
History. 1991. No. 32 (1) : pp. 29-46.
"Huey Long and Racism." Glen Jeansonne. Louisiana History.
1992. No. 33 (3) : pp. 265-282.
"Social Origins of Anti-Communism: The Information Council
of the
Americas." Arthur E. Carpenter. Louisiana History. 1989. No.
30 (2) :
pp. 117-143.
Dan T. Carter. The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, The
Origins of the
New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American
Politics.
Louisiana State University Press. Baton Rouge and London.
1995.
Lee Edwards. Goldwater :The Man Who Made A Revolution.
Regency Press. New York. 1995.
Rosemary James and Jack Wardlaw. Plot or Politics : The
Garrison Case
and its Cast. Pelican Publishing House. New Orleans, La.
1967.
Ed Butler. Revolution Is My Profession. Twin Circle, 1968.
Florida Legislative Investigative Committee (aka---The Johns
Committee). Records From 1954-1965.
T. Harry Williams. Huey Long. Vintage Books, A Division of
Random House. New York, 1981.
Richard Gid Powers. Not Without Honor: The History of
American Anti-Communism. The Free Press. New York and
others. 1995.
Alan Brinkley. Huey Long, Father Coughlin and the Great
Depression. Vintage Books. New York, 1983.
Carol Flake. New Orleans: Behind the Mask of America's Most
Exotic City. Grove Press, New York, 1994.
Carlos Bringuier. Red Friday. Chas. Hallberg and Company.
Chicago, Ill. 1969.
"Declassified." by Roger S. Peterson. American History. Vol.
XXXI No. 3. August, 1996.
Philip H. Melanson, PhD. Spy Saga: Lee Harvey Oswald and US
Intelligence. Praeger Publishers. New York, 1990.
INCA. Political Ephemera. Tulane University Special
Collections.
Papers of Dr. Alton Ochsner. Williams Center. New
Orleans Historical Society.
James DiEugenio. Destiny Betrayed: JFK, Cuba and the
Garrison Case. Sherridan Square Press. New York, 1992.
The Warren Commission Report : Report of the President's
Commission on the Assassination of
President John F. Kennedy. Vol. I-XXVI.
Telephone Interview with Ed Butler. February 28, 1997.
"Counterrevolution," George Fox. Playboy. Vol. 17 No.
3.March, 1970.
"Castro's Foes, Backers Battle on Embargo." Tampa
Times. March 1, 1961.
"Cigar Workers on the Spot." Tampa Times. March 3, 1961.
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