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According to scholar Diana Reynolds:
The Rex-84 Alpha Explan (Readiness Exercise 1984, Exercise Plan; otherwise known as a continuity of government plan), indicates that FEMA in association with 34 other federal civil departments and agencies, along with other NATO nations, conducted a civil readiness exercise during April 5-13, 1984. It was conducted in coordination and simultaneously with a Joint Chiefs exercise, Night Train 84, a worldwide military command post exercise (including Continental U.S. Forces or CONUS) based on multi-emergency scenarios operating both abroad and at home. In the combined exercise, Rex-84 Bravo, FEMA and DOD led the other federal agencies and departments, including the Central Intelligence Agency, the Secret Service, the Treasury, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Veterans Administration through a gaming exercise to test military assistance in civil defense.
The exercise anticipated civil disturbances, major demonstrations and strikes that would affect continuity of government and/or resource mobilization. To fight subversive activities, there was authorization for the military to implement government ordered movements of civilian populations at state and regional levels, the arrest of certain unidentified segments of the population, and the imposition of martial law. [1][/suP]
Existence of a master military contingency plan, "
Garden Plot" and a similar earlier exercise, "Lantern Spike" were originally revealed by journalist
Ron Ridenhour, who summarized his findings in "Garden Plot and the New Action Army."
[2][/suP]
Rex 84 was mentioned during the
Iran-Contra Hearings in 1987.
[3][/suP] The
Miami Herald wrote subsequently on July 5, 1987:
Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North and the Federal Emergency Management Agency ... had drafted a contingency plan providing for the suspension of the Constitution, the imposition of martial law, and the appointment of military commanders to head state and local governments and to detain dissidents and Central American refugees in the event of a national crisis.[4][/suP]
The basic facts about Rex 84 and other contingency planning readiness exercises—and the potential threat they pose to civil liberties if fully implemented in a real operation—are taken seriously by scholars and
civil libertarians.
[5][/suP]
Exercises similar to Rex 84 happen regularly.
[6][/suP] Plans for roundups of large numbers of persons in the United States in times of crisis are constructed during periods of increased political repression such as the
Palmer Raids and the
McCarthy Era.
For example, from 1967 to 1971 the
FBI kept a list of over 100,000 persons to be rounded up as subversive, dubbed the "ADEX" list.
[7][/suP] This list contained many labor leaders, scholars, and public figures of the time.
In 2008, for the first time an active military unit has been given a dedicated assignment stateside for civil unrest containment. It is assigned to
Northcom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities.
[8][/suP]
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