CIA CONSPIRED TO SAVE A TERRORIST

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100170039-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 11, 2012
• Sequence Number: 39
• Publication Date: September 23, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/11: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100170039-4
ARTICLE APPLARND
O N FAGY,________.
THE WASHINGTON POST
23 September 1980
CIA. Conspired to Save a Terrorist
JACK ANDERSON
In the "wilderness of mirrors" that
makes up the espionage game, the
Central Intelligence Agency once con-
spired to save the life of the world's
most notorious terrorist-Carlos the
Jackal.
He picked up his animal nickname
from the fictional assassin who almost
nailed Charles deGaulle' in Frederick
Forsyth's novel, "The Day of the Jack-
al," but his real name was Ilitch Rami-
rez Sanchez. He was the eldest son of
an 'expatriate millionaire Colombian
lawyer in Venezuela. ..
This is his story as pieced together
by- my associate Dale Van Atta from
top-secret CIA and State Department
documents t..
? 1966: At 17, already influenced by a
younger brother who was a leader in
the Venezuelan Communist Party, Car-
los was trained in one of Fidel Castro's
guerrilla camps. There he learned the
terrorist's art from Gen. Viktor Sime-
? 1969: Carlos was expelled from Lu-
mumba University in Moscow where
he had developed a fast friendship
with a Palestinian commando named
Mohammed Boudia.
? 1970: Carlos fought with Palestin-
ian guerrillas in Jordan against King
Hussein.
1971: Carlos was the hit of the
Latin-American cocktail crowd in Lon-
don, where he escorted his beautiful
mother and charmed women with his
guitar-playing talent. He was known as
"El Gordo"-the fat one. '
-
? 1972: -Carlos helped organize the
massacre of Israeli athletes at the Mu-
nich Olympics, and the Japanese Red
Army's indiscriminate machine-gun
slaughter at the Tel Aviv airport
-June 1973: A'Israeli hit team assas-
sinated Carlos' old Moscow friend
Boudia; and Carlos took over Palestin-
ian terrorist operations in Europe.
Libyan strongman Muammar Qaddafi
financed the extremist, Palestinian
group, called the Rejection Front.
? December 1973: Carlos shot Zionist
'department store tycoon Joseph Sieff
in London but failed to kill h;
r
m
execution, and the Condor nattnns
were warned to call off the murder
plot.. , L *,.Z: .
Why did the CIA save. Carlos? Sev-
eral sources in the agency suggested
that it was ~a Mafia-like. professional
concern-that if Carlos were ` mur-
dered, it would cause chaos in the
murky world of international espio-
~
r
. nage..,._....,,~..
? January 1974: Carlos bombed an Is-
raeli One source thought it was at least
bank in London. ; possible that Carlos had been -a CIA in-
bombs in downtown Paris ? August 1 Psaimed aimed a at t a a formant, and that the agency wassim-
: _
Jewish newspaper and two French ply protecting one of its own. This
newspapers that supported Israel. source did not, however; suggest that
? September 1974: Carlos supervised Carlos had ever been a paid killer for
the Japanese Red Army seizure of the - the CIA. French Embassy at The Hague, Neth- At any rate. Carlos was spared.
erlands, using grenades stolen from a thanks to the CIA's intervention. and
U.S. Army depot in Germany by the lived to wreak his bloody handiwork
Baader-Meinhof terrorist gang. Carlos for at least a few more months. He:was
tossed a grenade into Le Drugstore in captured by French police in June
Paris, killing two and wounding 1975, but managed to escape after kill-
others, preparatory to the embassy ing an informant and two policemen;
takeover in Holland. he masterminded the kidnaping of the
? Late 1974: Enter the CIA. Through OPEC oil ministers in December 1975,
its intelligence contacts, the agency and was reportedly rewarded with a $2
learned that an assassination squad of million bonus by his paymaster, Qad-
the six-nation consortium of South dafi; he helped engineer, in July 1976,
American dictatorships, known as the hijacking in Athens of an'"Air
"Operation Condor," had been ordered France plane which wound up at.-En-
.to kill Carlos. The assignment was ap- tebbe Airport in Uganda, where the Is-
parently in retaliation for Carlos' as- raelis pulled off their daring rescue
sassination of Col. Ramon Trabal, Uru- mision.
guay's military attache in Paris; and - After that, Carlos the Jackal
for two other murders he was sus- dropped from sight. Intelligence
pected of plotting-that of a Bolivian sources say he wound up in Iraq,-and
ambassador in Paris and a Chilean offi- may have been exterminated in that
cial in the Middle East. nation's secret purge of Palestine ter-
. According to a top-secret document ' rorists. There is some speculation he is
based on CIA internal files, Carlos was now in Libya, but the smart money in
spared ,when the CIA warned the the intelligence community bets that
French. government of the proposed, Carlos is dead. Still, no one is sure. u
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/11: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100170039-4