MILSTAR (SYSTEM). Milstar is a series of advanced U. S. military communications satellites. The original Milstar program, initiated in the early 1980s, was designed to provide secure communications for strategic and tactical military forces during a nuclear conflict. The first set of satellites was launched in 1995, with replacements following into space beginning in 1999. The latest iterations have improved the original design.
Milstar is the most advanced military communications satellite system to date. The operational Milstar satellite constellation consists of five satellites positioned around the earth in geosynchronous orbits, which are linked to highly mobile ground terminals installed on ships, submarines, vehicles, and aircraft. Because the system is mobile and geographically dispersed, planners believe Milstar can survive a nuclear conflict.
MKULTRA (OPERATION). Operation MKULTRA was a joint Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Department of Defense (DOD) program, initiated in April 1953 to determine the usefulness of mind-control techniques, particularly of drugs, on human behavior by conducting experiments on witting and unwitting participants. The program originated in 1950 and was motivated by Soviet, Chinese, and North Korean use of mind control and brainwashing techniques.
The program was controversial from the start. After the death of an unwitting person (Frank Olson, an army scientist who was given LSD in 1953 and committed suicide a week later), an internal CIA investigation warned that such experimentation was dangerous. Ten years later, a 1963 inspector general report recommended termination of unwitting testing; however, deputy director for plans (DDP) Richard M. Helms continued to advocate covert testing on the grounds that the Soviet Union was making strides in this area. Once Richard Helms became director of central intelligence (DCI), he was compelled to end unwitting testing on the grounds that it was morally questionable and it risked embarrassing the CIA.
MKULTRA was the subject of investigation by the Rockefeller Commission in 1975, the Senate Church Committee in 1976, and other entities. The CIA told the Church Committee that MKULTRA involved human experimentation using every research “avenue” listed in the MKULTRA document except for radiation. The CIA also noted that most of the MKULTRA records were deliberately destroyed in 1973 by the order of DCI Helms. In early September 1994, the CIA found a document that asserted that it had explored radiation on humans directly.
Following revelations of MKULTRA and other unethical CIA practices, President Gerald R. Ford issued the first executive order on intelligence activities in 1976, which, among other matters, prohibited experimentation with drugs on human subjects, except with informed consent; in writing and witnessed by a disinterested third party; and in accordance with the guidelines issued by the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects for Biomedical and Behavioral Research. Subsequent executive orders by Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan expanded the directive to apply to all human experimentations. Successive DCIs have issued internal guidelines for implementing the executive orders.
MONGOOSE (OPERATION). Operation Mongoose was a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) covert action program in 1961-1962 to undermine and overthrow the Fidel Castro regime in Cuba. First proposed in May 1961, President John F. Kennedy authorized the operation in November 1961 under the policy direction of the 5412 Special Group of the National Security Council (NSC). President Kennedy designated General Edward G. Lansdale, who had implemented Operation Gold in the mid-1950s, to act as chief of operations. Operation Mongoose included a series of disparate but related activities, including paramilitary actions, sabotage, and political propaganda. President Kennedy terminated Operation Mongoose after the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962.
MORNING SUMMARY. The morning summary is the current intelligence publication of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) in the Department of State. INR coordinates the summary within the State Department and delivers it to the secretary of state five times a week.
MOUNTAIN (OPERATION). A covert program initiated by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the late 1950s and continued well into the 1960s in conjunction with Israel’s Mossad to employ its excellent contacts to mount intelligence gathering and influence operations in the Third World. As part of the program, the CIA used Israeli proprietary companies, such as the Reynolds Construction Company, to build intelligence communications facilities in Iran, Turkey, and Ethiopia. In the 1960s, moreover, the CIA extended the program into other areas of Africa where Soviet anticolonial propaganda had given it an advantage over the United States. Israel sent agricultural advisors, irrigation specialists, and other experts to African nations to promote economic development, but the CIA and Mossad also provided weapons and internal security training when some African leaders expressed interest in them. Such arrangements provided American and Israeli intelligence excellent opportunities for intelligence gathering. The Israeli proprietary company Zimex Aviation, for example, sold Libyan strongman Muammar Qaddafi an airplane whose crew was comprised entirely of Israeli and American agents. A similar operation was set in place when Ugandan dictator Idi Amin purchased a whole fleet of aircraft from Zimex.
MUJAHIDEEN, AFGHAN. The Afghan mujahideen were loosely allied Islamic and nationalist groups brought together by the common goal of ousting Soviet military forces that had invaded Afghanistan in December 1979. In April 1978, left-leaning Afghan military officers overthrew the centrist government and handed power to two Marxist political parties, the Khalq (“Masses”) and Parcham (“Flag”), which together had formed the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan. Having little popular support, the new government forged close ties with the Soviet Union, launched ruthless purges of all domestic opposition, and began extensive land and social reforms that were bitterly resented by the devoutly Muslim and largely anticommunist population.
Muslim tribal-based insurgencies arose against the government, and these uprisings, along with internal fighting and coups between the Khalq and Parcham factions, prompted the invasion of the country by about 30,000 Soviet troops in December 1979 with the aim of propping up the client state. The Soviets initially left the suppression of the rebels to the Afghan army, which was unable to contain the resistance. The war quickly settled down into a stalemate, with about 100,000 Soviet troops controlling the cities, large towns, and major garrisons and the mujahideen roaming relatively freely throughout the countryside. The Soviet military tried to eliminate the mujahideen’s civilian support by bombing and depopulating the rural areas, but this tactic sparked a massive flight from the countryside; by 1982 some 2.8 million Afghans had sought asylum in Pakistan, and another 1.5 million had fled to Iran.
The mujahideen were eventually able to neutralize Soviet air power through the use of shoulder-fired Stinger antiaircraft missiles supplied by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). In 1988 the United States, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the Soviet Union signed an agreement for the withdrawal of Soviet troops and the return of Afghanistan to nonaligned status.
In April 1992, various rebel groups, together with disaffected government troops, stormed the capital of Kabul and ousted the communist president Mohammad Najibullah. A new transitional government, sponsored by various rebel factions, proclaimed an Islamic republic. The extreme Islamist Taliban came to power, and they were in turn ousted by a coalition of U. S.-led military force in 2002. See also AL QAI’DA; COVERT ACTION.
MULLIGAN, HERCULES (1740-1825). Hercules Mulligan was a New York City tailor who catered to British officers and thereby collected
Intelligence information for General George Washington. Mulligan also had access to British secrets through British officers billeted in his house. He is credited with informing George Washington of British plans to move into Delaware in April 1777 and with supplying information that helped foil at least two British assassination and capture plots against General Washington.
World History
