U.S. GOT REPORTS ON CONTRA ARMS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000200810010-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 20, 2012
• Sequence Number: 10
• Publication Date: December 17, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000200810010-3
ARTICLE AP R
ON PAGE
U.S. COT REPORTS
ON CONTRA ARMS
~I.
By JOEL BRINKLEY
Special to Me New York Times
WASHINGTON, Dec. 16 - United
States military and intelligence per-
sonnel in El Salvador sent regular re-
ports to numerous Government offi-
cials in Washington detailing covert
shipments of arms through Salvador to
the Nicaraguan rebels last spring and
summer, State and Defense Depart-
ment officials acknowledged today.
Until the law changed this fall, the
Government was prohibited from di-
rect involvement in military aid to the
rebels, but Defense Department offi-
cials say filing the reports was not im-
proper.
Congressional investigators said to-
day that they were focusing on this new
disclosure because some rebel' arms
shipments are believed to have been fi-
nanced with profits from arms sales to
Iran.
In addition, they confirmed that
Southern Air Trans ort ,Miami was
s5 own in a mte igence reports to be
shipping arms to the rebels, known as
contras, while it was under Govern-
ment contract to ferry some of the
arms that were being sold to Iran.
Southern Air was owned by the C.I.A.
from 1960 until 1973 and still gets fre-
quent agency contracts, intelligence of-
ficials say.
Some Aid Is Withheld
The investigators say they intend to
ask why the officials in the C.I.A., the
State Department and the other agen-
cies who may have seen the reports
from the Ilopango air base in El Salva-
dor apparently asked no questions
about them.
Meanwhile, the controversy has
prompted a House subcommittee to
withhold about $15 million in military
aid to El Salvador. Pentagon officials
involved in the aid program say they
see this as a sign that the Iran-contra
affair is "spilling over" into seemingly
unrelated foreign policy matters.
William J. Casey, the Director of
Central Intelligence, has said he be-
came suspicious that money from the
arms sales to Iran was being chan-
neled to the contras only in October
after a conversation with a former
business associate who was a marginal
participant in the Iran affair. But a sen-
ior Congressional aide who has been in-
volved in one of the House investiga-
tions of the Iran and contra arms sales
said, "It seems unlikely to us that no
one in the C.I.A. who was privy to both
sets of information" about Southern
Air "failed to put them together and
ask some pertinent questions."
NEW YORK TIMES
17 December 1986
The State Department was required
by Congress to monitor the flow of the
$27 million in "non-lethal" United
States aid to the rebels approved last
year. Most of the food, clothing and
other material was flown through Ito-
pango air base in El Salvador, which is
maintained and equipped largely with,
American financing. As a result, Amer-
ican military and intelligence person-
nel stationed there sent reports to
Washington on the flights.
Many of the covert arms shipments
to the rebels were flown through Ilu-
pango as well. Often the same Southern
Air planes were used, officials said. Re-
ports on those flights, too, were sent to
the C.I.A., the State Department and
the National Security Council, among
other agencies, officials said.
Full Knowledge of Flights
A Defense Department official di-
rectly involved in Central America pro-
grams said: "It was not inappropriate
for them to know. They reported on
them, and people in Washington had
full knowledge of them."
A State Department official recalled
that several intelligence reports on the
covert arms shipments "crossed my
desk" along with reports on the ship-
ments of humanitarian aid. But he said
he did not know of any specific action
the department took as a result. "As
far as we knew these were private
flights, and everybody here thought it
was lust fine that supplies were getting
to the resistance." he said.
More detailed versions of the same
reports went to the C.I.A., he and other
officials said.
Meanwhile, starting in the fall of
1985, Southern Air was also ferrying at
least some of the arms that were sold
to Iran, officials said. An American
arms dealer in Miami who was also a
Government informant said those ship-
ments were common knowledge
among prominent arms dealers and
among Southern Air's competitors in
Miami.
Federal law enforcement officials
confirmed that account, but the dealer
and the officials said in interviews in
Miami that none of them knew that the
shipments to Iran were sanctioned by
the Government although they sus-
pected as much because of Southern
Air's ties to the C.I.A. Reports on the
shipments were passed to Washington,
officials said.
State and Defense Department offi
cials say this controversy should not be
used to affect unrelated programs
such as military aid to El Salvador. Bu
Representative David R. Obey, chair.
man of the Appropriations Commit-!
tee's Subcommittee on Foreign Opera-
tions, said: "I am not at all sure it is
unrelated. If it is unclear whether our
operation in El Salvador is in fact doing
double duty involving Nicaragua, it
seems to me they have not kept them
separate issues."
In a letter to Secretary of State
George P. Shultz, Mr. Obey said he felt
it especially important to determine
whether money appropriated for aid to
El Salvador was used, "directly or indi-
rectly, in any manner whatsoever, to
carry out or coordinate or facilitate the
sale of weapons to Iran and the subse-
quent provision of funds or material to
the Nicaraguan contras."
Until quesions about the apparently!
mingled operations are cleared up, he
said, his subcommittee will block about
$15 million in aid to El Salvador, most
of which was to pay for 14 new helicop
ters and planes for the Salvadoran
military.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000200810010-3