Asst. Sec. State Mike A. Hammer, Son of a Martyred CIA Agent?

[It is always alarming whenever the State Dept. or the Pentagon dispatch their chosen representatives to Central Asia. You never really know, until many years later, exactly what kind of deals were being sought. In a case dealing with a great unknown factor, such as Sec. Michael A. Hammer, an individual with no searchable background, it is time to get very suspicious. I am also very curious to know whether his middle initial “A” is short for “Armand.”]

Assistant Secretary Hammer To Travel to Tajikistan and Uzbekistan

“Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs Mike Hammer will travel to Tajikistan and Uzbekistan from April 7 to April 15, where he will engage with journalists, government officials, civil society leaders, and students on public affairs issues and U.S. support for democratic institutions, among other topics, and will underscore the U.S. Government’s commitment to the region. While in Dushanbe, Assistant Secretary Hammer will meet with the Tajik Head of Communications and the MFA Spokesperson to discuss press and internet freedom. In Uzbekistan, Assistant Secretary Hammer will participate in a conference on government transparency and press freedom with a panel of journalists, ministry spokespeople, and representatives from parliament. He will also host a Facebook chat and an on-the-record discussion with independent journalists.”

[The only real info given by the White House on Hammer is on his higher education and the fact that he was born on December 26, 1963. Then there was this other fact about Mike Hammer, he “grew up in Latin America, living in Honduras, El Salvador, Colombia, Venezuela, and Brazil.” On Jan. 3, 1981, when Mike A. Hammer would have been seventeen, “labor organizer”/CIA agent Michael P. Hammer was killed in San Salvador, along with two others, by right-wing death squads from the National Guard.]

Rudolfo Viera (left), Michael Hammer (center) and Mark Pearlman (right), murdered in the lobby of the Sheraton Hotel in San Salvador, El Salvador, January 3, 1981.

[The following photos show Hammer’s son at his Arlington funeral. The same site reports that Hammer rose no higher than Airman First Class, certainly not a rank meriting an honor guard at Arlington. With Reagan just entering the White House, you know that he wasn’t being honored in such a way for his service to a radical labor union, unless that union was Reagan’s brand of “radical.” They were honoring another slain CIA agent at Arlington that day.]

same guy

[In that pre-Contra era, Michael Peter Hammer was considered to be just another political activist in Central America, until he was murdered along with two other labor organizers. Today, we know that his employer, American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD), was just another CIA front. This particular one worked covertly to undermine indigenous peasant labor groups, while simultaneously organizing right-wing labor unions with funding from the largest American corporations, including the Rockefellers.]

The American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD) was an AFL-CIO organization whose purpose was to undermine foreign unions. It received funding from the US government, mostly through USAID, and starting in the 1980s it began receiving funds from the National Endowment for Democracy. The AIFLD also had close ties to the Central Intelligence Agency.

The AIFLD most often concentrated on union officials in foreign unions, both paying them off as well as “training” them.

The AIFLD was created in 1962. A US Comptroller General’s report says “In May 1961 the AFL-CIO approached private foundations, business men, and government agencies to seek financing for the planned Institute”. One of the foundations it applied to was the Michigan Fund, identified by Congressional sources as a conduit for CIA money. AIFLD found welcome open pockets in the business group. George Meany, President of the AFL-CIO and also of AIFLD, boasted support from the “largest corporations in the United States . . . Rockefeller, ITT, Kennecott, Standard Oil, Shell Petroleum . . . Anaconda, even Readers Digest. . . and although some of these companies have no connection whatsoever to US trade unions, they are all agreed that it was really in the US interest to help develop free trade unions in Latin America, and that’s why they contributed so much money”.

J. Peter Grace, Chairman of the Board of AIFLD and also Chairman of the Board of the W.R. Grace Corporation, one of the ninety five transnational companies that back the Institute, applies the doctrine in tactical terms. Grace says AIFLD urges “cooperation between labor and management and an end to class struggle” and “teaches workers to increase their company’s business”. He says the goal of AIFLD is to “prevent communist infiltration, and where it exists . . . get rid of it”