Murdering SDI

Since last July there have been seven terrorist bombings, three assassinations, five highly suspicious “suicides,” and one disappearance among European scientists, researchers, defense contractors, and military and government officials. All the victims were involved with high-tech, defense-related research, most of it linked directly to the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), and all the deaths took place in the midst of a high-profile campaign by the Soviets to kill SDI development. Three of the dead men were senior advisors to Western European governments; each of them had participated in sensitive and previously secret SDI “cooperation talks” between their respective governments and Washington. Although some individual reports of the more dramatic terrorist incidents have appeared in the press, as yet no one in the U.S. Government or media has seriously addressed the SDI-related killing spree.

On July 9, 1986, Karl-Heinz Beckurts and his driver were killed by a remote-control bomb outside Munich. Beckurts was the Director of Research at the Siemens Company, an SDI contractor; in June 1985, he had met with U.S. Government officials to discuss the possibility of conducting SDI research. According to a report in the Los Angeles Times (July 10, 1986), government officials said Beckurts had been involved in research on SDI technologies, although a company spokesman denied it. In late 1985 and early 1986, Beckurts served as an advisor to the Bonn government during SDI cooperation talks with Washington. A letter left by the Marxist Red Army Faction (RAF) indicated Beckurts was assassinated because of his involvement in these “secret negotiations.” Beckurts’s name appeared on an RAF hit list of businessmen and researchers who had expressed interest in SDI, which was found during a raid on a Red Army Faction safehouse shortly after Beckurts’s death.

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Peter Schweizer

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Since last July there have been seven terrorist bombings, three assassinations, five highly suspicious “suicides,” and one disappearance among European scientists, researchers, defense contractors, and military and government officials. All the victims were involved with high-tech, defense-related research, most of it linked directly to the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), and all the deaths took place in the midst of a high-profile campaign by the Soviets to kill SDI development. Three of the dead men were senior advisors to Western European governments; each of them had participated in sensitive and previously secret SDI “cooperation talks” between their respective governments and Washington. Although some individual reports of the more dramatic terrorist incidents have appeared in the press, as yet no one in the U.S. Government or media has seriously addressed the SDI-related killing spree.

On July 9, 1986, Karl-Heinz Beckurts and his driver were killed by a remote-control bomb outside Munich. Beckurts was the Director of Research at the Siemens Company, an SDI contractor; in June 1985, he had met with U.S. Government officials to discuss the possibility of conducting SDI research. According to a report in the Los Angeles Times (July 10, 1986), government officials said Beckurts had been involved in research on SDI technologies, although a company spokesman denied it. In late 1985 and early 1986, Beckurts served as an advisor to the Bonn government during SDI cooperation talks with Washington. A letter left by the Marxist Red Army Faction (RAF) indicated Beckurts was assassinated because of his involvement in these “secret negotiations.” Beckurts’s name appeared on an RAF hit list of businessmen and researchers who had expressed interest in SDI, which was found during a raid on a Red Army Faction safehouse shortly after Beckurts’s death.