1970: Future FEMA Director Advocates Emergency Roundup of Millions

Louis O. Giuffrida, a colonel in the US Army who will later head the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) under President Reagan (see May 18, 1981), writes a paper while at the US Army War College advocating martial law in the event of a militant uprising by African Americans. The Miami Herald will later report that Giuffrida’s paper calls for the roundup and transfer of at least 21 million “American Negroes” to “assembly centers or relocation camps” in the event of an emergency or uprising by black citizens. The paper will resemble martial law plans later drafted by FEMA while Giuffrida is the agency’s director (see June 30, 1982). [Miami Herald, 7/5/1987]