NCJ Number
77154
Date Published
1975
Length
362 pages
Annotation
Written for law enforcement personnel, these articles examine overt and covert terrorist operations, including demonstrations and civil disturbances, kidnapings, bombings, and propaganda attacks. Countermeasures are outlined and selected terrorist documents are reproduced and analyzed.
Abstract
The first article outlines methods the Washington, D.C., Police Department employs to deal with both planned demonstrations and spontaneous civil disturbances. The department's guidelines for handling mass arrest procedures are provided. Because the attacker, the security force, and the executive to be protected compose the variables of a protective equation, the second article examines the often overlooked impact of the executive's public and private personas on the implementation of a successful security program. Further, an article on mentally unbalanced attackers describes the basic psychological impulses of those who commit violent attacks on prominent persons, explaining that the build-up of frustration, increased by the presence of the underlying mental aberration, can result in the final tension-relieving act of attack, injury, or murder. Citing incidents of mail bomb attacks by terrorist groups, another article describes types of mail bombs, including letter, soft and hard cover book, and large manila envelope bombs. Mail bomb countermeasures to be implemented by individuals and security directors are also outlined. In addition, an Israeli viewpoint regarding Arab terrorist groups, their organization, and select operations within the United States is presented. Other articles include an extract of a House of Representatives' staff study on the Symbionese Liberation Army, and reproductions and analyses of a 1956 Irish Republican Army handbook for volunteers, and of a terrorist document on urban warfare. Update reports examine the operational consequences of fear for police officers and departments and the propaganda techniques of the People's Bicentennial Commission. Political kidnapings and transnational terrorism are detailed. Footnotes, diagrams, photgraphs, and tables listing sources of security equipment and world extremist groups are included. For related volumes in this series on clandestine tactics and technology, see NCJ 77150-53 and 77155.