I spent 3 days in Huntsville (home of the Army Space Command's Redstone Arsenal and NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.) The two bases are co-located at the same large facility.

Prior to leaving while doing research on Huntsville I discovered that they were in the running, along with Cape Canaveral and the Stennis Missile Center in Mississippi, to be the testing site for the space-based laser (SBL) program. The decision should be made this fall on the exact location. The testing program, according to the Army's web site, will cost $30 billion.

While doing that research I began to learn a bit more about "Operation Paperclip", the program that brought the Nazi V-2 rocket scientists to Huntsville after WWII. At least 1,600 German scientists were brought to the U.S. under that program. I found out that a book called "Secret Agenda" by Linda Hunt, former CNN investigative reporter, had been written in 1991 and called Linda before leaving for Huntsville. She sent me her book, and several of her printed articles on the subject, and I read the book on the plane to Alabama.

I plan on sending one of her articles out to you all in the next few days so I'll spare all all of the details for now. I've invited Linda to come to our March 17-18, 2001 Nat'l Space Organizing Conference in Huntsville and she eagerly agreed to come and do a slide presentation on the origins of the U.S. Space program and its Nazi roots. Just one illustration though: * The Peenemunde, Germany (Nazi rocket factory that used slave labor to build the V-2) team's leader, Wernher von Braun, became the first director of the Marshall Space Flight Center. * Mittelwerk's (the second Nazi rocket factory that was put underground again using slave labor) head of production,Arthur Rudolph, was named project director of the Saturn V rocket program that took the U.S. to the moon. * Peenemunde's V-2 flight test director, Kurt Debus, was the first director of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. * Peenemunde's base commander, Maj. Gen. Walter Dornberger became Vice-President of Bell Aerosystems in New York.

While in Huntsville I met with two different groups of people and gave them the details of our work and our 2001 plans to come to Huntsville. Quite a number of the folks I met with either are retired from the space center in Huntsville or still work there. I was able to get onto the base twice while there and was astounded at the massive amount of construction going on there at this time. It is clear that big money is now being pumped into Huntsville.

The Army Space Command in Huntsville is in charge of the Theatre Missile Defense (TMD) program and I visited the museum at the space center which has an entire second floor committed to promoting the TMD system with big displays claiming that the U.S. is "defenseless". It was chilling.

I then went south to Birmingham and met with leaders of the peace movement in that community who committed to working with us to enliven activity around Huntsville. It appears likely that they will do an action on October 7 as well. They promised to help us build support for the March events in Huntsville too. Most of the peace movement people I met with in Alabama were with Veterans for Peace.

The base is constructing a brand new large gate at one of the main entrances of the facility in Huntsville. It is clear that the Pentagon expects protest activity to pick up at this facility due to its expanding role in Star Wars and the nuclear rocket to Mars. It will be important that all of you in the U.S. help us to promote the March 17-18 events in Huntsville. I hope all of you will be able to attend. Our new friends in Alabama need and look forward to our active support.

Bruce Gagnon

The contents herein are Copyright 2000, Global Network/Bruce Gagnon, the article may be reproduced for non-profit purposes as long as the source is recognised, otherwise reproduction can be arranged through the Global Network.

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