Ronnie Barrett and Charlie Wilson hold the Barrett 82A1 50.caliber rifle, similar to the ones used in Charlie Wilson's War, during a recent meeting in Nashville.
The death of former Texas Congressman Charlie Wilson, age 76, on Wednesday was sad news for Murfreesboro businessman and firearms manufacturer Ronnie Barrett. “Charlie was an American hero who helped create the biggest covert operation in United States history, which led to ending the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union,” noted Barrett while discussing Wilson’s death.
A spokesman for the Memorial Medical Center in Lufkin, Texas, said that Wilson began having difficulty breathing and was pronounced dead on arrival from cardiopulmonary arrest. Wilson had a heart transplant in 2007.
Barrett spent several hours with Wilson recently in Nashville where the two men reminisced about the Afghanistan resistance to the Soviet Union, and how Wilson’s life was chronicled in the best-selling book about Charlie Wilson’s War, and the subsequent movie starring actor Tom Hanks as Wilson.
While a member of the U.S. Congress and on the House Appropriations Committee, Wilson was responsible for securing millions of dollars for the CIA to arm the Afghani mujahedeen against the powerful Soviet military. Some of those arms included the Barrett .50-caliber rifles manufactured in Murfreesboro.
Barrett was involved in the covert effort but remained silently loyal to those involved over the years, dating back to the 1980s. He says, “We frequently met with people from the front; some of whom were portrayed in the movie, and learned through them how the former Soviet Union was gripping that area of the world with an iron fist. Their military was bombarding Afghanistan constantly 24 hours a day. The freedom fighters had limited means of defense”.
Barrett still has the personal letter from Charlie Wilson, dated September 22, 1987, ordering the purchase of the Barrett rifles, which were picked up in Murfreesboro by the United States Government and routed through Pakistan and onto the Afghani freedom fighters.
“I think that it is interesting how much of a role Tennessee played in that covert operation,” recalls Barrett. “The CIA actually purchased a large number of Tennessee mules from the mid-state to transport supplies, arms and munitions over the mountains and rough terrain in order to sneak them into Afghanistan”.
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