ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, March 22, 1996 TAG: 9603220072
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
The U.S. Army announced plans Thursday to tighten its regulations for dealing with extremist activities in its ranks to make it easier for officers and sergeants to stop soldiers from wearing hate-group emblems and hanging Nazi flags in their barracks.
The move, part of a package of new measures ordered by Secretary of the Army Togo D. West, followed the recommendations of an emergency panel called to study the situation after two soldiers were charged in the murder of a black couple near Fort Bragg, N.C., in December.
Although the study found only ``minimal'' evidence of extremist activity in the Army, West said the service decided it needed to ``clarify'' existing regulations to eliminate some apparent confusion about how far officers could go to crack down on such activities.
He said the Army also would give new officers and soldiers more training about avoiding hate groups and would consider making extremist activities a punishable offense. West also asked the Defense Department to start screening recruits to reject those with such views.
Defense Secretary William J. Perry immediately welcomed West's recommendations, and said the Pentagon would review departmentwide regulations on extremist activities to see if they also should be changed. Neither the study nor West named specific hate groups.
Private groups involved in monitoring hate groups and extremist activities in the United States also praised West's action.
Mark Weitzman, director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Task Force Against Hate, hailed the steps as a demonstration ``that the Army can be part of the solution, not part of the problem.'' But he said the real test will be in how much money it allocates to the job.
The Army study, conducted over 28 major installations, found that less than 1 percent of some 7,638 troops interviewed either knew of a soldier who had participated in an extremist group or even had come into contact with such an organization on or near the base.
In a companion survey, involving written answers from 17,080 soldiers, 3.5 percent reported that they had been approached for membership by an extremist organization since joining the Army, and another 7.1 percent said they knew of another soldier who was a member of such a group.
The task force also surveyed law enforcement authorities in the areas around military bases and found that extremist groups do not seem to be specifically targeting soldiers for recruitment. ``There is minimal evidence of extremist activity in the Army,'' it said.
However, the task force found evidence that Army regulations on participation in such organizations by soldiers are ``misunderstood and confusing to soldiers and junior leaders,'' and that current training programs are inadequate.
As West put it Thursday, ``it's clear (to U.S. soldiers that extremism is not desirable, but they're not so clear about the Army's attitude toward it.'' He added: ``We're going to make sure that our commanders and sergeants know what's going on in our barracks.''
The study said one of the major areas of confusion stemmed from the key Army regulation covering membership by soldiers in hate groups, which ostensibly is intended to provide commanders with the authority they need to crack down on such behavior.
While the regulation bars soldiers from any ``active participation'' in such groups, it asserts that ``passive activities'' - such as simple membership, receipt of literature, presence at a rally - ``are not prohibited by Army policy.'' And there is no list of banned groups.
Although Army officials contend the language was designed to protect soldiers' free-speech rights, the report said ``many junior officers and (sergeants) ... are confused as to what groups are by definition extremist and what nonviolent actions cross the line of extremism.''
At the same time, the study asserted, efforts to relax regimentation in the barracks in order to give unmarried soldiers the same kind of latitude in lifestyle that the Army affords families have made officers and sergeants reluctant to monitor troops after hours.
The results of such policies left the Army struggling to explain itself after police found that one of the soldiers charged in the North Carolina slayings had been linked to neo-Nazi skinhead activities and had posted a Nazi flag on his barracks-room wall.
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