Page 3 (1/2)

PROLOGUE

BETA SCENARIO

The facts are these:

1 On August 22nd, 1972, seven men flew into Salt Lake International Airport, Salt Lake City, Utah The o, Dallas, and New York All seven anized cri and their testimony provides the major portion of this report

Each man was first contacted in his home city by an anonymous telephone call They were each paid a thousand dollars in cash to do an unspecified job All they knew in advance was that the job would take forty-eight hours, and that they iven an assumed name which he was to use for the duration of the job

The men arrived in Salt Lake between noon and four PM local time They were met separately When all had arrived, they were transported in a 1968 white Plymouth sedan outside the city

The trip out from Salt Lake was made in total silence After an hour of travel they arrived in Ramrock, Utah, a town of 407 persons located in the north-central region of the state

2 Thein a one-storey wood frame house previously rented by an unknown party While in the house, the seven erprints could be recovered Thein the house, and received

instructions on their job from the leader, a man identified only as `Jones' Jones is described as a heavysethair Positive identification has not yet been made of this person

3 Jones told the asse to steal a quantity of insecticide from a train He told them that he had not personally planned the theft, that it had been worked out by someone else They believed this when they heard the plans Although not formally educated, these ree that Jones, as described by one as a `drill-sergeant type', lacked the acumen to formulate the plans

4 The plans were remarkable for their detail For exa at 35 ulations covering shipo The men were told the tiway Proving Grounds, Utah, through the state The men were told of the existence of impedance trip sensors in the rails, and were instructed in relay ti mechanisms involved They were told that the insecticide would be stored in 500-pound canisters of two varieties - one kind painted yellow, the other black They were told that they must steal one yellow canister and one black canister Two yellows or two blacks would not do

Equally important is what the men were not told They were not told that the train would be guarded This is an important point I2 means either that plans were drawn up for the robbery one uards on the trains - or else that the presence of the guards was known by the planners; who elected not to inform the men This point is still in debate

Thethe insecticide in the first place Significantly, none of them asked Apparently it was a matter of total indifference to them

5 They remained in the wood frame house in Raun and a pistol The uns were of the usual variety, that is, war surplus equiped barrels Some other party had sied barrels (cf Memorandum 245/779: Abuses of War Surplus Weaponry) The arage of the house It had apparently been there waiting for some weeks, because it was dusty They drove off into the desert to meet the train

6 They arrived at an unnamed site in northeast Utah shortly after 2 Am They carried out their preparations quickly and efficiently in the light of a full moon

One man was sent down the tracks until he found the impedance trip sensor He blocked thean electronic override device Thus no one knew for six hours that the train had been stopped farther up the tracks; it was assumed that the trip sensor had broken down

Meanwhile four othernearby The robbery site was eland and had been chosen specifically because of this The men shot the steer nearest the tracks The other cattle ran off at the sound of the shot

The ed it across the railroad tracks The ani device was attached to it

Then all seven men cli place behind some low dunes They waited approximately fifteen minutes before the train appeared in the distance The overn of three flatcars lettered US GOVERNMENT PROPERTY on the sides They were also surprised to see an armoured caboose at the end of the train

7 The engine slowed, apparently as the engineer sighted the obstacle across the tracks When the train stopped, the ti device caused the dead steer to burst into fla to re from the arun into an armoured port, and delivered a-burst of fire to the interior All five soldiers (and one physician) inside the caboose were killed The engineer was also killed a few moments later

8 The men unloaded two canisters from the train, one black and one yellow Each wasso vivid that the s to the effect that the canisters contained highly dangerous chemicals

They carried the canisters across the desert to a flat location nearby They set them down 100 yards apart and burned a red flare near each

9 Two or three minutes passed, and then two helicopters appeared over the horizon The helicopters landed in tandeside the flares They were commercial helicopters of a nondescript nature The only unusual aspect was that each had been fitted with a nylon web sling to hold a canister The s The helicopters lifted off again into the night

10 The men returned to the Land Rover and drove back to Salt Lake City, arriving at 6 not on the hteen hours they flew out of the city to their points of origin None had any knowledge of what happened to the canisters None had any knowledge of the true contents of the canisters

It is clear froed in an activity closely approxi Scenario'sequence called CB W Beta These scenarios were prepared in the fall of 1965 for the Department of Defence (Command and Control) They considered the options and ramifications of theft of therents

Beta Scenario treated the possibility that a relatively sures or political extree, or terrorist purposes The consequences of theft were considered uniformly disastrous Therefore the scenario outlined ways to prevent this occurrence

The chief preventive mechanism was deemed secrecy in transport schedules and methods That is, the thieves would not knohere, or when, theshipped As a result of the Beta Scenario conclusions, timetables for shipment were established by a closed-code co froarded as foolproof and unbreakable

However, it is obvious that these seventhe timetable It is not kno the ti the men to easily, almost effortlessly, steal one half-ton of the as in the world

Chapter 1

HOUR 12

LOS ANGELES

5 AM PDT

The grey governeles International Airport Seen fro shadow across the concrete runway in the pale ht He watched the sedan as his helicopter descended and landed a short distance from the car

The driver ca blades, and opened the door A gust of warust air swirled into the interior of the helicopter

`Mr Graves?'

`That's right'

`Come with me please'

Graves got out, carrying his briefcase, and walked to the car He climbed into the back seat and they drove off away from the runway towards the freeway

`Do you knohere we're going?' Graves asked

The driver consulted a clipboard `One-oh-onethree-one Washington, Culver City, I have'