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Operation Red Dog
Operation Red Dog
Type	Attempted coup d'état
Locations	Intended target: Dominica; Arrest location: New Orleans, U.S.
Planned by	Patrick John, Wolfgang Droege, Don Black, Mike Perdue, Sydney Burnett-Alleyne, James Alexander McQuirter
Target	Government of Eugenia Charles
Date	27 April 1981
Outcome	Plot thwarted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms
Casualties	None

Operation Red Dog was the code name of an April 27, 1981, military filibustering plot by Canadian and American citizens, largely affiliated with white supremacist and Ku Klux Klan groups, to overthrow the government of Dominica. They planned to restore former Prime Minister Patrick John to power. The chief figures included American Klansman Mike Perdue, German-Canadian neo-Nazi Wolfgang Droege, American white supremacist Don Black and Barbadian weapons smuggler Sydney Burnett-Alleyne.^[1] After the plot was thwarted by US federal agents in New Orleans, Louisiana, the news media dubbed it "Bayou of Pigs", after the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba.^[1]

The leader Mike Perdue and six other men pleaded guilty to violation of the Neutrality Act; two others were found guilty by a jury.^[2] The men each received three-year prison sentences.^[3] Another man linked to the plot committed suicide after being implicated as a financier.^[4]

Perdue claimed former Texas Governor John Connally and Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) knew about the plot, but United States district judge Lansing Mitchell stated that neither had any connection to the plot and refused to subpoena them.^[5]

Mission

On April 27, 1981, Droege and eight other men, including Canadian James Alexander McQuirter and American Don Black, who later founded the white nationalist website Stormfront, were arrested by federal agents in New Orleans as they prepared to board a boat supplied with automatic weapons, shotguns, rifles, handguns, dynamite, ammunition, and a black and white Nazi flag.

The plan was to charter a boat to Dominica and rendezvous via rubber boats with Patrick John and his makeshift army. The genesis of the idea came from long-time Klan member Perdue, who was introduced in 1979 to Droege. That summer, Perdue outlined his plan to overthrow the government of Grenada and set up several lucrative businesses. After their meeting, they determined that Droege would locate funds and resources. Croatian-Canadian Don Andrews was initially involved, but after Perdue changed the target island to Dominica, Andrews withdrew. Klansmen Arnie Polli and Roger Dermee were paid US$3,000 to visit Dominica and make a preliminary reconnaissance. German-Canadian neo-Nazi Martin K. Weiche was allegedly a financial backer of the plot, along with James White of Houston and L. E. Matthews of Jackson, Mississippi.^[6]

In February 1981, the captain and crew backed out. Perdue approached Michael S. Howell, a local boat captain and Vietnam War veteran. Perdue said that the Central Intelligence Agency needed his boat for a covert operation. Howell then contacted the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF). On April 25, John was arrested in Dominica. When Perdue learned of the arrest and that their plans were no longer secret, he insisted that the mission should continue. On April 27, the group, including three undercover ATF agents, met at the predetermined location, loaded the van and proceeded to a marina where local police were waiting for them.

On June 21, 1981, lawyer J.W. Kirkpatrick of Memphis, linked to the coup attempt by court testimony, killed himself with a shotgun. Perdue testified that he'd received $10,000 from Kirkpatrick to finance the assault on Dominica. Kirkpatrick was the brother-in-law of former congressional representative E.C. 'Took' Gathings (D-AR). Friends said that Kirkpatrick had extremely conservative political views, as did the former congressman, and thought the coup would prevent a communist takeover. One colleague said Kirkpatrick was a "super-ultra-ultra-ultra-conservative," who "thought the country was going to hell in a hand-basket."^[4] Perdue also testified that he used $70,000 collected from businessmen to purchase weapons, dynamite and other military equipment, and to pay for reconnaissance trips to Dominica.^[7]

In 1984, during an interview by Barbados's daily Nation Newspaper, Sydney Burnett-Alleyne, one of the leaders of the plot, was asked if the group had planned to overthrow the government of Barbados and install John as prime minister there as well. He responded:

He could have become prime minister, although that was not the real reason behind my plan of action. I wanted to add the land mass of Dominica to that of Barbados and also to be able to undertake an industrial project of considerable size. South African resources, millions of dollars, were available to me to be used for such a project. But Patrick John didn't do what was supposed to have been done. But more than that, I became incensed when I found out he was giving away Dominican land to Americans. He lost an important opportunity to be a central figure in the history of the Caribbean.^[8]

A book about the plot, Bayou of Pigs, by Canadian journalist Stewart Bell, was published in August 2008.^[9]

References

^ ^a ^b A, C (October 4, 2006). "Tull: Tell us about coup rumours". Nation Newspaper. Archived from the original on 2012-03-06. Retrieved 2009-10-04.
^ "2 GUILTY IN NEW ORLEANS FOR PLOT ON DOMINICA INVASION", The New York Times, June 21, 1981
^ "KLANSMEN GET 3-YEAR TERMS", Boston Globe, July 23, 1981
^ ^a ^b "Lawyer left suicide note - UPI Archives". UPI. Retrieved 2024-01-03.
^ "JUDGE DENIES CONNALLY SUBPOENA IN TRIAL OF 3 ALLEGED MERCENARIES". New York Times. June 14, 1981. Retrieved 13 August 2022.
^ Associated Press, "Named at trial over coup bid, lawyer kills self", The Globe and Mail, June 23, 1981
^ "Prosecutors look toward financial backers of coup attempt - UPI Archives". UPI. Retrieved 2024-01-03.
^ Staff Writer (1984-04-02). "Interview with former arms dealer, Mercenary Leader" (PDF). Barbados Nation Newspaper (February 13, 1984). US Military Intelligence - Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC). pp. 20–24. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 4, 2011. Retrieved 2008-01-01.
^ Bayou of Pigs: The True Story of an Audacious Plot to Turn a Tropical Island into a Criminal Paradise, by Stewart Bell, John Wiley & Sons, 2008.