CIA File on Ray, Manuel

capability. In fact, him told uncommonly that the company was set up financially by the House Small Business Administration loans section in Washington. The guns were never supposed to be put on public sale. Something got loused up."

The IHS man and another agency had asked that the company be established. It was concluded he was referring obliquely to the CIA. IHS also duplicates to some degree the Irregular case.

The operation was brought to a sereching halt July 7, 1945, when the IHS ordered the registration of the Smres fires. The plant itself was reportedly shut down in May. IHS sources and "borne arrests" had been made but because a trial is pending no more information would be made public. When this writer attempted to learn further details, he received unsolicited long distance telephone calls from IHS headquarters in Washington and California demanding to know "why" he was gathering facts.

A recent 101-page report on "Firearms Violence and Civil Disorders" prepared by Arnold Kote of the Stanford Research Institute for the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, does not concern itself with machine guns or other fully automatic weapons.

The report cost its sponsors—two of the nation's largest firearms manufacturers, Winchester and Ilemington—$35,000. It concludes that "guns have not played a major role in America's urban roots to date, but exaggerated press reports of rosters using guns have apparently frightened many citizens into arming themselves for future disorders."

This report may be correct with regard to the frightened citizens (though there is no concrete evidence), but is inaccurate on the subject of urban riots. The Stanford Research Institute study, which is addressed to the White House as the word on firearms, violence and civil disorder, is convinced that reports about civilians using firearms (not to mention machine guns) during urban riots is pretty much bogus.

It will be very difficult to convince Cleveland, Ohio, Police Chief Michael Blackwell of that.

He told Mayor Carl Stokes on July 30, 1963, that if the mayor had not ordered white policemen out of the violence-torn eastside area of the city earlier in the month that the officers "would have walked into a slaughter."

Cinef Blackwell said there was evidence that black nationalists who ambushed police, touching off a savage gun battle that killed 10 persons, had "tripod military type machine guns" and would have used them had the white officers not been withdrawn.

The chief declined that police informants saw at least one machine gun and that the black nationalists had stitched ammunition belts which would have been useless in any other type of weapon.

"They (Cleveland officers) should thank their lucky stars they were pulled out. 'There were machine guns on there waiting for them.' Chief Blackwell said. Then he declined to amplify the disclosure. Once again the custom was drawn around the subject of machine guns and a news blackout was on.

However, Chief Alice made the claim that he didn't know where the machine guns are now. Nonetheless, his own intelligence unit retrieved 15 high-powered weapons, including one machine gun, from the charged ruins of an apartment house in which a black nationalist died in the gun battle, according to an associated Press report from the embattled city.

Where might these lethal, high-powered weapons have been obtained? They could have been sought from the CIA's underground facilities, or they could have been stolen from the military, or they could have even been purchased from the Army, indirectly. According to the Stanford Research Institute's report, the U.S. Army has indeed been duped by extremist groups in the past into indiscriminate seizing of weapons.

Admitting deep concern over the proliferation of paramilitary organizations, the Stanford report says the Cavlian Marksmanship Program administered by the Secretary of the Army in conjunction with the National Rifle Association sold excess military firearms and ammunition at reduced prices to not only the all-white Minutemen but in 1967 to a group called RAM (Revolutionary Action Movement). RAM is the parent organization of UHURU, the Afro-American Youth Association, Afro-Student Association and the Black Panther Party. RAM is aligned with the Communist Viet Cong under leadership of the notorious Robert Williams, a fugitive American now in Peking, China.

The House Committee on Un American Activities considers RAM one of the most dangerous radical groups in America.

The purchases of these military arms were made by subversives of every stripe who formed phony gun clubs which then joined the NIA (which has since repudiated them and set up a careful screening process).

Lamentably, the five-month, $35,000 study concludes also that "there is no information as to who is buying firearms by age group, sex or race, or the declared motivation for purchase . . . " The report also says "adequate information is also not available as to the number of guns stolen or transferred annually, the number of guns in the inventory of individual possession in each state or city, or the number of guns currently being sold to residents of each state or city."

"The Stanford Research Institute "estimate" is that individuals possess at least 115 million firearms—maybe as many as 200 million, or one for every woman and child in the U.S. Considering the number the Stanford Research Institute does not know about, as for example military thefts, there's no doubt about it.

If motivation for buying weapons is a mystery to Stanford's learned scientists, they might do well to consult some of the 115-to-200 million owners. Today, in an America rent by turmoil and conflict, where there is at least one gun for every man, woman and child, there is great fear that extremist activity will precipitate a virtual civil war. And if the catremists

start shooting for keeps they will do so with uninstructed weapons said to threat by the CIA factories that may still be going today, or with modern weapons supplied by an unwitting military establishment.

Little wonder, then, that so many people feel uneasy about the run situation today. They've been reading about RAM and they've been reading about the Minutemen . . . and wondering what other extremist groups are stockpiling weapons, just waiting for their day. . .