RENEGADE AGENT MAY HAVE BUGGED ARMY MEETINGS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100160037-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 10, 2012
• Sequence Number: 37
• Publication Date: October 14, 1981
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/10: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100160037-7
ARTICLE APPEARED
ON PAGE
brought together at lunch on May
.12, 1976, by Paul Cyr, a former
Army Materiel Command official.
Also present was Wilson's assistant,
Kevin Mulcahy, who has become a
witness for the prosecution.
According to notes of the lun-
cheon meeting, Kincannon agreed
"to secure and forward inventory of
surplus Control Data hardware avail-
able for immediate sale." Wilson was
to be paid a minimum of $1,200 a
Wilson and Kincannon were
countries.
May Have Bugged
Army Meetings
A federal grand jury is looking
into allegations that renegade CIA
agent Edwin Wilson may have
bugged meetings of the Army Ma-
teriel Command to get information
for Control Data Corp., one of the
world's biggest computer firms.
A corporate executive admits hav-
ing met with Wilson and hired him
as a consultant, but denies the com_,-.-.
pany requested or knew about any
bugging of the Army's procurement:
arm. Control Data's vice president
for government and military market-
ing, L. Taylor Kincannon, said the
purpose of hiring Wilson was to use
his "great contacts" to unload some
outdated computers on Third World
Renegade Agent
THE WASHINGTON POST
14 October 1981
month in consultant fees, peanuts to
a $7., billion-a-year company like
Control Data...
Kincannon insists that the Wilson
contract was "to sell obsolete equip-
ment to Third World countries" and
nothing else. But Mulcahy has told
investigators that the point of the
contract was to get inside informa-
tion on the Army's bidding and pro.!
curement plans. This was to be ac-
complished with bugging devices.
The "consulting agreement" itself,
obtained by my associate Dale Van
Atta, describes Wilson's job in a sin-
gle sentence:. "Performance of work
shall include consulting services in
the area of Department `of Defense
programs." No mention of dumping
old computers on Third World na-
tions.
In mid-July, Mulcahy says, Wil-
son ordered him to bill Control Data.
When Mulcahy observed that they
hadn't done anything to sell the
company's computers, Wilson said
,-' they had indeed, they were about to
bug the Materiel Command for the
company. He sent Mulcahy to a
meeting where the bugging was to be
arranged.
The meeting took place in -the
Texaco station at Bailey's Cross-
roads, a few miles from Washington
in suburban Virginia, at 7:30 a.m.
The gas station proprietor's brother,
Douglas Schlachter,. was, in. charge.
(He has since been secretly indicted
in another Wilson caper and is hid-
ing out in Burundi.)
The key participant, though, was
a Pentagon employe who was in his~
40s, thin, bespectacled, nervous. He J
worked in the contracts section of
the Army Materiel. Command: AR41
some discussion, he agreed to' carry' a
tiny transmitter into his office and
meetings. He insisted. that the 'bug`!
must be hidden. either in his brief=''
case or in his glasses:
After the meeting, Wilsorr'? sid -'+
kick and- fellow fugitive, ex-CIA agent Frank Terpil arranged for the d
purchase of custom-made transmit "I
ter crystals through a Yugoslav c-n-
tact in London named Iva The tw'd'
of them had done some electront&
eavesdropping for the Playboy Cluby
there to make sure dealers- in :th
casino weren't skimming the house?'aj
take. (Terpil also discussed witirlj
Playboy officials a plan to.construet~
a floating casino off Bahrain. -Rich l
Arabs would be transported to the-;
emporium in speedboats.)
Control Data's contract with. Wit-, j
son was finally terminated in April,
1979, after the company had -paid-a'
him at least $43,000 but closer to'
$100,000. Kincannon acknowledged:.,]
that. Wilson "never generated any
business" for the company, which...&
"never sold any equipment through,,;
him." Wilson was "very close to sell= -i
ing one terminal that we had,".said
Kincannon, who blames himself, only.,,
for keeping such an unproductive tt
consultant on the payroll for three,;;
years.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/10: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100160037-7