His appeal was about as subtle as a Code Pink pie in the face. In 1957, Brown raised money on the CU campus for the Fidelistas. My name still appears on the masthead as Gun Rights Editor.Īnyway, by the time the Bay of Pigs operation went down, Brown had been a Cuba liberation activist for at least five years - first as a supporter of Castro and then, following a visit to Havana after Castro took over, as an opponent. In the late ’80s and early ’90s I worked for SOF as an editor and later as a freelance contributor. Then, as now, he gave a terrific interview. Brown, a CU alum who at age 29 was 11 years my senior, was back on campus to talk about the invasion (it didn’t collapse for another day or two) and drum up support for the rebels. But we were both all for getting rid of Castro.Īt the time I was a freshman reporter for the Colorado Daily. OK, we weren’t on the beach, on the boats, in the loop, or any closer than 2,500 miles from the action. Brown, the future editor and publisher of Soldier of Fortune Magazine, in 1961 during the Bay of Pigs invasion.
So in honor of the occasion I thought I’d share some SOF stories.īut first full disclosure. That law forbids Americans to fight in foreign armies or to recruit others to fight abroad.īrown maintains a 27,000-square-foot warehouse in Boulder, Colo., the magazine`s home base, where he collects military surplus gear donated by his readers-primarily Vietnam and post-Vietnam-era veterans-for shipment to the contras and the Afghan rebels.Soldier of Fortune Magazine, liberal Boulder’s favorite mad aunt in the attic, will put out its 35th anniversary issue next month. Neutrality Act with his various projects and schemes to aid those he calls ''freedom fighters''-everyone from the Kirin guerrillas in Burma to the Afghan mujahideen fighting Soviet invasion forces at the Kybur Pass. Since 1981, Brown, by his own admission, has skirted the outer bounds of the U.S. ''We bought some, and the Afghans bought some,'' Calero said. He recalled, for example, how Brown`s negotiators got a deal on field radios for $600 instead of the $1,200 list price. In an interview, Calero praised Brown`s group for creating a global underground network among ''freedom fighters'' whereby they share supplies and join together to get volume discounts.
troops in Korea and founder of the Colorado-based World Anti-Communist League, which has raised millions of dollars to support U.S.-backed forces in Central America and Afghanistan. John Singlaub, former commander of the U.S. aid package has been approved.Īlso attending the convention is Gen. Kent said Bermudez and Mario Calero, the contras` procurement chief, asked him at the convention to switch CMA`s donations from supplies for troops to providing aid to Nicaraguan refugee camps now that the U.S. This summer, CMA`s Arizona chapter conducted freelance military maneuvers along the Mexican border and captured a dozen people, including women and children, trying to enter the U.S. They also swap notes, recruit one another for the coming year`s projects and, as Brown puts it, ''share camaraderie.''Īmong those attending the convention is Jim Kent, third-in-command of the Alabama-based Civilian Materiel Assistance (CMA), a group that provides medical supplies and food for the Nicaraguan rebels. Each year virtually the entire list of ''Who`s Who'' among the country`s hard-line anticommunists joins the irrepressible Brown to discuss strategy and compete against one another with pugil sticks, knives, guns and other tools of the freelance commando`s trade. Boasted Brown, who is viewed by some as the Hugh Hefner of the camouflage set.