With the situation in the Middle East rapidly moving to a point that it could easily pull the entire world into war, I remember what I was doing in 1984!

In 1984 I joined forces with Barbara Honegger, a former White House staffer, to warn the world that if Ronald Reagan was re-elected president, his Christian advisors would push him to create Armageddon in the Middle East. They believed that Jesus could only come again after Armageddon. It didn't seem to matter that the fulfillment of their interpretation of religious prophecy meant genocide for the Jews and many other people living in the Middle East.

In 1984, the only way we had to get information like this to the public was via talk radio shows, mass mailings and if we were lucky, we might get a line or two in the newspaper or on television. Knowing that our odds weren't good for media coverage, we opted for creating a pamphlet and an audio tape, both of which could be used as part of a mass mailing.

Fortunately, a very wealthy man believed in what we were doing and paid for the printing and recording. We sent our mass mailing, including our pamphlet, which we titled, International Security Alert, AND an audio tape, to every newspaper, magazine, radio station and television station in the United States and to many outside the United States. We also sent many to people who heard about us on radio shows and asked for copies.

Please read the comments we received from people who read the ALERT.

To our amazement, almost every major magazine and newspaper ran a short story using our information. To our disappointment most did NOT run the story on the front page or in the political section, they ran the articles in the religious section. The religious section of magazines and newspapers is probably the least read section.

But we saw the fruits of our efforts begin to pay off when Geraldine Ferraro, the vice presidential candidate, stated in a speech toward the end of October, 1984, that “Ronald Reagan believes in a nuclear Armageddon with the Soviet Union.”

Ferraro went on to say that in 1983 the President said, “I find myself wondering if we’re the generation that’s going to see that (Armageddon) come about.” Again using quotes from our mailer and our tape, Ferraro said that in 1981 Reagan said, “Russia is going to get involved in it.”

As the crowd in Oakland, California grew quiet Ferraro said, “Now, I don’t know what he meant by that, but if he’s using that religious doctrine to justify his lack of progress on arms control, or his decision to send the arms race into space, then I say he’s out of step with the American people and frankly, I find it frightening!”

The story about Ferraro’s speech in Oakland was picked up by the New York Times, the AP, and the Boston Globe, to name only the papers from which I still have copies of the story.

On Sunday, October 28, 1984, the New York times ran an article titled “Religious Debate Fueled by Politics” The subtitle was, “Reagan’s Talk of Armageddon Focuses Attention on Split Over a ‘Day of Doom’.

The article stated,

“On a number of occasions over the years, President Reagan has referred to Armageddon, the place where, according to some religious teachings, the last, decisive battle between the forces of good and evil is to be fought before the Day of Judgement.

“Representatives of mainstream religions charged last week that such references lent support to the idea that the United State and the Soviet Union were destined for a nuclear showdown.”

The New York Times went on to quote a number of the things we had stated in our printed literature and the tape we had sent to all major media. They quoted one of our paragraphs about Hal Lindsey, the author of the “Late, Great Planet Earth”.

“Mr. Lindsay holds that the Soviet Union is “the beast” mentioned in Revelation and the force of “the north,” the evil Gog and Magog on whom God rains destruction in the bible’s Book of Ezekiel (38-39)

“Citing the battle descriptions in Ezekiel, Revelation and Zechariah, he (Hal Lindsay) predicts Armageddon will begin with the annihilation of the Russians and their Arab allies. That, he asserts, will be followed by a war between the Western powers and the Chinese, which will culminate in the end of the world in a thermonuclear blast.” (end of quote)

On October 24th, 1984 the Washington Post ran an article on page 6 titled “Armageddon - Group of Church Leaders Asks Candidates to Repudiate Nuclear Doomsday theory”

The article spoke about a petition that more than 100 religious leaders sent to both Reagan and Mondale asking them to repudiate the Armageddon ideology. I wonder how many people of these religious leaders would have known anything about this dangerous ideology if Barbara and I (and a small group of helpers) had not gathered the quotes, references, and audio clips together and mailed them out?

The Washington Post continued:

“The religious leaders said they fear the political implications of the theory that is prevalent among much of the Christian right wing. If carried to its logical conclusion, arms negotiations would be pointless because nuclear war with the Soviet Union is seen as inevitable.”

This last sentence was almost a direct quote of the ALERT we had sent out.

“The church leaders who called the news conference warned, ‘A religious doctrine, the ideology of a nuclear Armageddon, has entered our nation’s political arena. The ideology of nuclear Armageddon identifies our nation’s enemies with the enemies of God. Because the religious leaders who promote this ideology believe that the destruction of these enemies is decreed in Scripture, they conclude that reconciliation with America’s adversaries is ultimately futile.”

The Post went on to quote the same Reagan statements that Ferraro had quoted in her Oakland speech, followed by a statement by Rabbi Balfour Brickner, “...if the president really believes in some facet of this Armageddon idea, it’s a very scary business. Even if he doesn’t believe in it, to refer to it constantly, is to promote and give credence to a doctrine that’s very dangerous.”

The article about the 100 religious authorities and leaders was picked up in all the major newspapers.

The LA Times added that the Reverend Jerry Falwell issued a statement denying his belief in the (Armageddon) theory, despite the fact that he outlined such views in detail in a 1981 interview with the LA Times.

The Oakland Tribune, (October 23, 1984) quoted Jerry Falwell from his pamphlet, “Armageddon and the Coming War with Russia.” Falwell says “the stage is rapidly being set, even today in the Middle East, for the final conflict. Russia will invade Israel, communism will be defeated, the antichrist will appear and the ‘final holocaust’ at Armageddon will consume the Earth.”

The Tribune continues, “But not to worry,” Falwell tells born-again Christians, “because we’re going up in the Rapture before any of it occurs.” (RMNews Too bad for the rest of us "evil-doers" who are doomed to burn in the 'final holocaust'.)

The San Francisco Examiner (October 20, 1984) “Armageddon is mentioned in the Book of Revelation. It’s the story of the final and conclusive battle between the forces of good and evil. Moral Majority leader Jerry Falwell and other fundamentalist ministers close to Reagan have publicly interpreted the rise of the atheistic Communist government in the Soviet Union, the formation of Israel in 1948, and the reunification of Jerusalem in 1967 as signs that Armageddon will come in this generation.”

Barbara and I were not the only people who were talking about Reagan’s Armageddon beliefs. In New York City, Joe Cuomo broadcast a 90 minute program on WBAI titled, “Ronald Reagan and the Prophecy of Armageddon.” Copies of his tapes were hot items during the 84 election.

In Washington D.C., the Christic Institute was also alerting people about Reagan’s Armageddon beliefs. Barbara and I coordinated the press conference that was held in San Francisco with the press conference that was held in Washington DC by the Christic Institute. I can't remember if they were held on the same day, or if ours was one day after.

Why were our names never associated with the information we put out? Because Barbara had been publicly smeared by the White House. They did it in such a way that she didn't just appear to be a disgruntled former employee, she appeared to be flaky and crazy! Needless to say, all administrations have their ways of dealing with "trouble makers". It is FAR better to be labeled a "kook" that to be labeled a "threat". "Kooks" are smeared, laughed at and then ignored. "Threats" are killed!

Before I met Barbara, I knew about Barbara. Most people who read newspapers at the time knew about Barbara. From the inaguration in 1981, until her resignation in August (?) of 1983, Barbara worked for Ronald Reagan in the West Wing of the White House. During much of her three year stay in the White House she worked on Reagan’s alternative to the Equal Rights Amendment. When she realized that Reagan had no intention of ever implementing his “women’s equality” platform, she resigned by publishing her letter of resignation in the Washington Post.

Her name was in the headlines for weeks. It took KAL007 to knock her name out of the headlines. KAL007 was the Korean Airliner that was shot out of the air by the Russians! (The airliner was carrying Congressman Larry MacDonald, who had been questioning the legitimacy of the Federal Reserve and the IRS. MacDonald was a major 'threat" to the cabal of bankers who want to run ALL of the world as their personal fiefdoms.)

As soon as Barbara resigned, the Reagan Administration sent out their attack dogs and very quickly she was smeared. It didn’t matter that she had worked in two Reagan campaigns and had spent three years in the White House, she was labeled a “low level munchkin” and worse was implied!

May 13, 1985 NEWSWEEK article on Barbara Honegger titled, "The Munchkin's Musical!"
(In the third column you will see the name Raye Dyer. That's me. At the time I was married to John Dyer, a nuclear physicist who was the Dean of Science and Engineering at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.)

The Newsweek article was published over a year after she resigned, and well after the first Armageddon ALERT was issued. In the article, Larry Speakes, Reagan's spokesman, "sneered that the last time he’d seen Barbara 'she was the Easter Bunny at the White House egg roll.'”

From Newsweek, "The next day, Barbara produced a picture of herself with President Reagan and crowed that it was 'the Munchkin with the Wizard of Oz.'"

From Newsweek: “White House aides began whispering that Honegger was a believer is ESP who claimed she’d ridden on Halley’s comet. Others began to wonder about her when she bombed on ABCs Nightline: claiming that since Reagan had been in office she was “the only individual who saw the whole picture.”

(RMNews: In my opinion, at the time, Barbara WAS the only one who was seeing the big picture. She had worked with these people. She knew many of them personally. Not only this, she had known many of them since Reagan's first Presidential campaign. Before Barbara went to work in the Reagan Campaign, she worked at the Hoover Institute for Martin Anderson, who went on to become Reagan's domestic policy advisor. Further proof that Barbara was the only one who had figured out what was really going on, was a chapter on Religious Fundamentalism, titled "TRUE BELIEVERS", which was written from 1984 through 1986 for her book, October Surprise. The publisher would NOT include the chapter. If I remember correctly, she predicted what is happening right now... a New Holy War... a Jihad!)

According to Newsweek, “The media immediately backed off” after her appearance on Nightline. They didn’t bother to say that the media didn't back off completely until KAL007 was shot down! Newsweek comments that Barbara’s “entire passage from obscurity to obscurity took about two weeks.”

Because of the way the media had treated Barbara when she resigned from the Reagan Administration, we decided it would be best to use someone else as the “front man”. We didn’t want our information labeled as, “The Munchkin’s Armageddon Report!” or "The Munchkin Attacks the Religious Right!" We actually had quite a few laughs inventing cartoons that depicted Barbara as everything from a "Don Quixote Munchkin" to the "Munchkin who defeated Dr. Strangelove!"

We explained our feelings about having a "frontman" take over the press conference we were organizing for San Francisco to the man who had put up the money to print and record the ALERTS and tapes. He understood and agreed, Because he was extremely well connected, he set up a meeting between Barbara and me and Daniel Ellsberg and David Brower. Ellsberg was the "whistle blower" from the Nixon administration. He was the former Defense Department Analyst who released “the Pentagon papers”. David Brower is the man who started the Sierra Club.

Ellsberg and a group of religious leaders from San Francisco used the information we had gathered and documented to give a press conference in which they called for both President Reagan and Democratic challenger Walter Mondale to repudiate the view that nuclear war is near AND inevitable!

I could not find a copy of the pamphlet we designed and had printed, but I found the papers that were handed out to the reporters who attended the press conference. The papers were a transcript of the tape we had made.

Armageddon Theology and Presidential Decision-Making: Religious Leaders' Concern
Transcript of a Press Conference for RELIGIOUS ISSUES '84, in Association with Conference on the Fate of the Earth and Washington Research Center October 24, 1984, 10:00 am, at San Francisco Press Club

On October 25, 1984, the NY Times ran an article in which they stated, “This week a coalition of Christian and Jewish leaders asked the President to repudiate the Armageddon ideology as a perversion of Scripture and a danger to the nation’s security. Even the Rev. Jerry Falwell joined them, charging that evangelical theologians falsely hold a belief that nuclear holocaust is imminent and inevitable.”

The San Francisco Examiner ran an article on October 25, 1984. In it, they quoted, almost verbatim, from the written material Barbara and I had put together.

“Right-wing religious leader Jim Robison, whom Reagan invited to deliver the opening prayer at the 1984 Republican National Convention, said on the eve of the 1980 Washington for Jesus Rally:

“Jesus said there will be wars and rumors of wars until the end, As for any attempt at man-made peace, Jesus said, “I didn’t come to being peace. I came to bring a sword.”

“There’ll be no peace until Jesus comes. That’s what the Anti-Christ promises. Any teaching of peace prior to His return is heresy. It’s against the word of God! It’s anti-Christ!”

The Examiner went on to say, “Yesterday Jerry Falwell, Moral Majority leader denied allegations that he has “any association with the extremist world view of nuclear Armageddon.” Falwell also called the sudden spate of press conferences on the subject “just one more lame effort by anti-Reagan leaders to hurt the president.”

Still quoting the Examiner: “But in a recent radio documentary Falwell said, ‘There is not going to be any real peace in the Middle East until the day the Lord Jesus sits down upon the throne of David in Jerusalem. That day is coming, and, for sure, you and I are going to be a part of it.’

“In an interview published last March (1983) in the LA Times, Falwell predicted that the Soviet Union will invade the Middle East ’because it needs oil and hates Israel.’

The Examiner also printed the following, which truly appears to have been taken word for word... including the bullets, from our printed material.