Scrap heap dispels myths of espionage
GULFPORT, Miss.
The planned overthrow of the U.S. government ended rather prosaically this fall, with a giant pile of mashed-up trucks in a muddy scrap yard a mile or so off the Interstate.
The crew at Alter Metal Recycling has been piling up the old trucks since summer and sending them to Alabama, for melting down and reincarnation as everything from cars to washers and dryers.
In certain circles in the mid-1990s, rumors sprouted among those inclined to keep an eye out for black helicopters. To them, the presence of 700 military-looking trucks bearing Soviet-bloc markings in a weed-strewn lot north of Gulfport was clear proof of a U.N. plan to take over the United States.
The specific outlines of such a plot were rather vague. But conspiracy-cult radio shows and right-wing fringe newsletters delivered somber reports about the vehicles, speaking of armored tanks, secret roads and the role of the vehicles in the establishment of a New World Order.
But the real tale behind the trucks, as is often the case, turns out to be more interesting than the conspiracy.
Charles Chawafaty, an Egyptian businessman, and Fred Koval, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, met in a Saudi Arabian prison.
Koval, now 88, had moved to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in 1979 to teach electronics at a school run by the Lockheed Corp. In 1981, Koval spent 4 1/2 months in a Saudi prison. While there, he said, he met Chawafaty.
In 1993, Chawafaty’s company, Agrinvest International, which is based in Phoenix, bought roughly 1,000 former Soviet bloc vehicles that had been demilitarized and auctioned. Some were stored in Britain, but most made their way to an 18-acre lot north of Gulfport that Koval had found. Chawafaty said the plan was to retrofit the vehicles and sell them to the United Nations for humanitarian missions.
All of this set off the conspiracy theories. “But none of it attracted buyers,” Koval said.
In the end, the vehicles mostly sat unwanted in the lot. The conspiracy theories dwindled, as did customs officials’ visits.
The rusting accelerated after Hurricane Katrina. For various reasons, including the expiration of a trade license and the fact that nobody was interested in rust-covered trucks, Chawafaty decided to scrap them.
Koval laughed about the whole episode, which produced little more than proof that most business schemes, like most conspiracy theories, end up on the ash heap of history.