http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/columnists/qa/s_707913.html

Searching out enemies within

By Craig Smith
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Saturday, November 6, 2010

Cliff Kincaid is president of America's Survival Inc., a U.N. watchdog group, and editor of Accuracy in Media's "AIM Report."

An investigative journalist who specializes in analyzing communist and terrorist movements, Kincaid went through a national journalism program headed by conservative author and journalist M. Stanton Evans. He was on the staff of Human Events newspaper and was an editorial writer and newsletter editor for former National Security Council staffer Oliver North at his Freedom Alliance educational foundation.

We spoke by phone Tuesday as Dilma Rousseff, a former Marxist guerrilla, won election as Brazil's president.

Q: You've been chasing Bill Ayers, who co-founded the Weather Underground in 1969, and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, for some time. Is the Weather Underground still a threat?

A: Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn still have to be brought to justice. We have for a couple of years now been operating a project for victims of Weather Underground terrorism. A lot of our attention has been on their reported involvement in the 1970 bombing-murder of a San Francisco policeman, Brian V. McDonnell.

Former FBI informant in the Weather Underground, Larry Grathwohl, has testified under oath before grand juries as well as before a Senate subcommittee that Ayers had told him that Bernardine Dohrn planted that bomb. It was filled with heavy metal staples. It was put on the ledge of the Park Police Station in San Francisco and exploded. One of the staples went through Sgt. McDonnell's eye into his brain. He suffered in the hospital for two days before dying.

And what irritates Ayers and Dohrn is that we have continued to press for authorities to investigate ... and pursue charges in the case.

Q: Ayers says you're delusional. His wife calls you "the pack of lies guy."

A: Dohrn told me ... that this was all preposterous, stupid that I would even suggest this. All we're asking is that Dohrn and Ayers and other members of the Weather Underground be put under oath about what they know about this bombing.

They clearly don't want to say anything under oath but the fact is that there is a ... task force based in San Francisco with local, state and federal authorities who are examining this cold case.

Q: America's Survival Inc. recently held the Marxism in America Conference, and during that you called for the new Congress to bring back the House Internal Security Committee. Would that be something you'd like to see investigate Bill Ayers and maybe even the president?

A: We think such a committee could investigate the Park Police Station bombing and support the efforts of law enforcement authorities to bring justice in that case. A committee like that could subpoena Ayers and Dohrn and other members of the Weather Underground.

It can also investigate Marxist networks in the U.S. that continue to operate. We have noted with interest that several U.S.-based Marxist organizations were recently raided by the FBI on suspicion of providing support for foreign terrorist organizations.

Two of these people, whose offices and homes were raided in Chicago, were involved in the New Party, which was a so-called independent political party that had initially backed Barack Obama during the start of his political career.

It's important to note that these two (Joe Iosbaker and Stephanie Weiner) have been associated with a group called the Freedom Road Socialist Organization. The Freedom Road Socialist Organization is openly Marxist-Leninist. It is one of several U.S-based Marxist groups that are associated with something that's actually called the International Communist Movement.

So it will be interesting to see where these investigations lead and whether the FBI is permitted to continue to look into these networks. This is critical because whether it involves these raids or the investigations of Ayers and Dohrn, you're dealing with people who are or were very close to the president of the U.S.

Q: Did you hear a lot of cries of McCarthyism when you proposed this?

A: We are going to pursue this proposal ... and I'm sure that will be one of the charges we hear. That has been an effective charge by those on the left who don't want their own activities investigated.

This is one reason why even some conservatives back in 2008 shied away from taking seriously our revelations about Barack Obama having a communist mentor by the name of Frank Marshall Davis. We had actually uncovered this with the help of blogger Trevor Loudon and then in August of 2008 got the 600-page FBI file on Davis. This is a guy who was a mentor to the president of the U.S. for eight years of his young life in Hawaii. Then he went off to the mainland and got involved in college and socialist conferences and a relationship with Ayers and Dohrn, and the rest of that is history. But ... this 600-page file proved that Davis had been under FBI surveillance for 19 years. He was a pro-Soviet communist who actually denounced those who had left the Communist Party as traitors. And this was the mentor for the president.

So we're not afraid of the McCarthyism charge. We're accustomed to hearing that. But facts are facts. ... These committees nevertheless serve a purpose by alerting the public and the Congress to the continued activities of communist and subversive organizations.

Q: How do Americans fight this?

A: We have to have a solid FBI that is free from the political control of the administration in power, which, as I say, has a vested interest in making sure the bureau doesn't follow some of the leads that they are currently on.

But also we need to understand the nature of the communist threat today. It is different.

These organizations still exist -- there are several U.S. affiliates of this international communist movement -- but in large measure, of course, their activities consist of supporting America's enemies and foreign terrorist organizations that are targeting our people.