Full Gospel Business Men's Fellowship International

The FGBMFI is an influential organization with a history of strong military connections and wide-ranging effects on foreign policy, particularly in Central America under the Ronald Reagan administration. Prominent right-wing activists, such as Joseph Coors (Heritage Foundation) and Sanford McDonnell (McDonnell Douglas Corporation), were members of FGBMFI.¹

Political and Military Influence

Ronald Reagan had close ties with FGBMFI. In October 1970 Pat Boone and Shirley Boone, Harald Bredesen and George Otis prayed with Governor Reagan at his home in Sacramento, with Nancy Reagan and Herbert Ellingwood present.² George Otis, a former Lear executive, reportedly spoke in the voice of God, comparing Reagan to a king and prophesying that Reagan would "reside at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue" if he continued to walk in God's way. Reagan reportedly took the prophecy very seriously. A Reagan Aide who later worked on Pat Robertson's presidential campaign invited Nita Scoggan, the wife of an FGBMFI member, to form a prayer group in the White House. Oliver North reportedly attended these prayer meetings.¹

Since 1964, FGBMFI held regular military prayer meetings in the Washington D.C. area, with three chapters, including one in the Navy Officers' Club. The Secretary of Defense even arranged for two prayer rooms to be built in the Pentagon. A 1986 FGBMFI brochure listed over a dozen military names, including the Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, the Chief of Naval Operations, the Chief of Staff of the Army, and the Chief of Staff of the Air Force.¹

In Central America, President Ronald Reagan supported General Rios Montt, a Pentecostal "true believer," who became president of Guatemala in an army coup in March 1982. Montt was aided and supported by Full Gospel businessman John Carrette, a former Army Ranger in Vietnam. According to Carrette, the then-presidents of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras were all Full Gospel.¹

Connections to Jimmy Hughes and the Honduras Coup

Jimmy Hughes joined FGBMFI in 1987 and subsequently founded Jimmy Hughes Ministries – Free the Oppressed in Honduras. He openly admitted his past as a "Mafia hit-man" on the FGBMFI website. John Carrette "god-fathered" Hughes into the Fellowship and helped set him up in Honduras.¹

Hughes was a high-standing member of FGBMFI and a keynote speaker at a dinner event in Fresno, California, in February 2008, alongside General Daniel Lopez Carballo of Honduras. Hughes, General Daniel Lopez Carballo, and Romeo Vasquez Velasquez were all members of FGBMFI. The writer Cheri Seymour wrote that Hughes was involved in planning the Honduras coup of June 2009 and described Lopez Carballo and Vásquez Velásquez as his friends.¹ On June 28, 2009, the Honduran military detained President Manuel Zelaya and flew him to Costa Rica; Zelaya had ordered the removal of Vásquez Velásquez as chairman of the joint chiefs days earlier, and the Supreme Court had ordered him restored. The National Congress then replaced Zelaya with its president, Roberto Micheletti, who called it a "constitutional succession."³ On September 26, 2009, Hughes was arrested at Miami International Airport on his way to Honduras and charged in the 1981 murders of the Cabazon tribal leader Fred Alvarez and two others; the charges were dismissed in July 2010.⁴