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of international terrorist incidents nearly doubled between the first nine months of 1978 and the same period of 1979; according to one estimate, 60 percent of the terrorist incidents that have taken place in the last decade have occurred in the last three years. Not surprisingly, this huge upsurge in terrorism occurred immediately after the CIA was de-fanged and demoralized in the wake of sensationalized investigations by Congress. Restoring the ability of the intelligence community to protect us is essential if we are to dealwith the problem of terrorism before it gets even further out of hand. But trying to put out the fire after it is blazing is not enough. It is necessary to go to the heart of the problem—those who support terrorism, the major culprit being the Soviet Union.
The Recipe for Revolution
    While it has been relentless, the Soviet expansionist push has seldom been reckless. The Soviet leaders are aggressors, but they are cautious aggressors. They make most of their moves slowly and subtly, taking care to disguise them so as not to rouse the “sleeping giant” of the West from its slumber.
    They try to strike where least expected, when least expected, in the least expected way. Their preferred method is to provoke disorder and chaos in a targeted country, and then to move in and pick up the pieces after the established order has collapsed.
    They are professional revolutionaries, and one of the tenets of their professionalism is to stay out of sight while the old regime is being brought down, leaving the amateurs—the genuine patriots, the nationalists, the idealists—out front. Television shows us the amateurs storming into the streets; it does not reveal the professionals calling the shots from behind the scenes, plotting the capture of the new regime even while directing the overthrow of the old.
    With seductive slogans designed to deceive, with a small but efficient cadre of ruthless terrorists, with cynical leaders willing to promise anything for the future as long as they can gain power now, the professional revolutionaries move like hot knives through butter in societies that have come untracked. As chaos spreads in the wake of upheaval, they alone are marching silently in lockstep—their eyes fixed on the armories, the secret police files, the key posts in the new government, the malcontents in the armed services, the labor unions that run crucial industries, the newspapers, the radio stations, the vacant policechief jobs. Positions are won, workers are stirred up, opponents are arrested, political rivals are assassinated, and when all is ready the coup de grâce is delivered.
    This is the communist recipe for revolution. It enabled Lenin to depose the moderate Premier Alexander Kerensky only eight short months after Kerensky’s forces had ousted the Tsar in the first Russian Revolution. Lenin himself summed up its essential cynicism when he declared privately that “we will support Kerensky as the rope does the hanged man.” Since 1917 the Soviets have bottled their patented product and exported it to the rest of the world.
    The Soviets thrive on chaos, confusion, fear; they know that in desperate circumstances people will reach for desperate means. Communism offers the slogan of “liberation,” the promise of order; it tells the “outs” that it will put them “in,” the underdogs that they will be top dog. It speaks in terms of passionate certainty, and this appeals to people awash in uncertainty.
    The Soviets know that war, revolution, and economic depression can destroy the fabric of a society and make the siren song of communism sound sweeter. When people feel panic, tyranny can look attractive if it promises order. Chaos, war, and revolution are thus the natural allies of communism, just as famine, conquest and slaughter ride alongside the fourth horseman of the apocalypse, death.
    Knowing this, the Russians try, by whatever means they