Dispatches

The Safeguards Company

October 8, 2026

The Nuclear Surveillance and Auditing Corporation, established in 1968 to audit fuel fabrication and reprocessing, was headed by Ralph F. Lumb, who had chaired the Atomic Energy Commission's ad hoc committee on safeguarding special nuclear materials. Renamed NUSAC in 1975, it hired a former head of security at the commission's Savannah River operations office, and in 1979 a computer security manager from the Defense Intelligence Agency. By 1980 its security divisions listed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Department of Energy and the United States Navy as clients.¹

On December 28, 1978 the Wackenhut Corporation bought NUSAC's assets, and a Florida subsidiary was filed the next day at Wackenhut's Coral Gables headquarters. "NUSAC is and will remain an independent firm," George R. Wackenhut was quoted as saying. Its board in late 1979 was George Wackenhut as chairman, Lumb, Robert E. Miller and Dr. Myron S. Malkin, then director of the NASA Space Shuttle program.¹²

In April 1981 Robert Frye, president of Wackenhut Services, Inc., and Tribal Chairman Arthur Welmas signed the joint venture between Wackenhut and the Cabazon band.³ A letter over Welmas's name, headed "CABAZON INDIAN SECURITY /WSI JOINT VENTURE," Indio, describes a planned "new assault weapon, which would have unique characteristics, including an adjustable cycle rate of fire and a laser sighting system." The names that follow the signature are Peter Zokosky, Bob Frye, Dr. Myron Malkin, Colonel Glade Flake, John James, Bruce James, John Paul Nichols and Wayne Reeder. Whether the Dr. Myron Malkin of the letter is the NUSAC director is not established in the records.⁴

On May 8, 1984 NUSAC, Incorporated became Wackenhut Advanced Technologies Corporation, at Reston, Virginia, absorbing three other Wackenhut security divisions. Its president was Ralph E. Caudle, a retired Air Force colonel who since 1981 had headed the Department of Energy Office of Safeguards and Security, responsible for the protection of nuclear weapons materials and facilities and all of the department's classified information.²⁵ In 1985 the new company was selected to draw up the conceptual design of the security system for the nuclear device assembly facility at the Nevada Test Site, and in 1986 to engineer it.⁶

From September 1987 its vice president for national security studies was James B. Motley, a retired Army colonel, whose resume appears in the June 1990 packet of Counter Terrorism Consultants, Inc.⁷ Renamed the Wackenhut Applied Technologies Center in January 1990 and moved to Fairfax, it had by then a Defense Systems Analysis Group whose clients included the Army Survivability Management Office, and whose staff, the parent's annual report states, "apply their skills and background in military operations, requirements and intelligence to support the Department of Defense."²⁸ Wackenhut's annual reports describing this work are among the papers of Danny Casolaro.⁶⁸

In March 1993 the report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua on the INSLAW matter stated that the Wackenhut-Cabazon joint venture had no employees and that "the only individual employed by Wackenhut was Frye."³ Wackenhut's annual report for 1994 states that the Applied Technologies Center was sold or discontinued in 1993. The State of Florida dissolved the corporation on August 26, 1994.²⁹

The Transmittal

October 8, 2026

In March 1992 the House task force on the October Surprise hired E. Lawrence Barcella, Jr. as its chief counsel; its report of January 1993 found "no credible evidence" of an October Surprise deal.⁶ On May 29, 1992 the Hartford Courant reported that in the summer of 1985, while an assistant United States attorney, Barcella had given a legal opinion clearing a private $5 million shipment of Soviet-bloc arms to the Nicaraguan contras, arranged by John Singlaub and Barbara Studley of GeoMiliTech Consultants Corp. The Courant quoted Studley's 1991 deposition: asked who in the Justice Department approved the shipment, she answered, "Larry Barcella signed it." Barcella told the paper that "somebody in the government came to me," that he checked with the State Department's Office of Munitions Control and the Justice Department's internal security office, and that he "orally passed that back to the person that had made the request of me." The United States attorney, Joseph diGenova, first said, "Larry would never have done that," and a week later said, "Larry was sought out by a lot of people in intelligence."¹

The congressional Iran-Contra record holds one letter from Studley's lawyer. On April 28, 1987 Frank Koszorus Jr., on the letterhead of Finley, Kumble in Washington, wrote to the House committee's assistant counsel Kenneth Ballen: "During your telephone conference with Paul L. Perito this afternoon, you requested a copy of the memorandum from Barbara F. Studley's file regarding Oliver North. Please find enclosed a copy of that memorandum." The letter says nothing of a shipment or an opinion.² In 1992 Koszorus told the Courant he was "not at all certain that she was ever issued a written opinion."¹

The Courant reported that Barcella had gone into private practice in June 1986 "initially at the same firm where Koszorus, Studley's lawyer, worked," without naming it.¹ Thirty-one partners of Finley, Kumble's Washington office formed Laxalt, Washington, Perito & Dubuc in January 1988. Koszorus was described as a partner there in April 1989, and Barcella was described as a partner there when he left in July 1991, the month a Paul Perito, a name partner, moved to Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker.³⁴ Whether that Paul Perito is the Paul L. Perito of the 1987 letter is not established in the records found.

On March 1, 1993 Paul, Hastings registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act for the Embassy of the Republic of Hungary, at $8,334 a month, with Koszorus signing as attorney. The firm's supplemental statement, sworn by Koszorus, lists Barcella as having become a partner on July 18, 1994.⁵