HOW THE SECRET CONTRA-SUPPLY MISSION CAME UNGLUED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000301950001-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 20, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: March 8, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000301950001-6
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PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
8 March 1987
(lawmen found an operation heset by sloppy superrisinn. faulty equipment and incessant infighting.
How the secret contra-supply mission came unglued
By agye_Slegitlow,
MarLEAdallah
and Frankg
Inquirer .1gton BUredll
WASHINGTON ? The C-123K cargo plane
was on a secret weapons mission to the
Nicaraguan contra rebels, flying perilously
low over the jungle along the Nicaragua-
Costa Rica border about 3 a.m. on a hot June
night last year.
As the pilots searched for the contras, the
plane dipped lower and lower, slicing
through thick rain clouds.
Suddenly there was a jolt. The left side of
the plane had struck a tree, crippling a
booster engine, scraping a wing and crum-
pling the nose landing gear doors.
The large plane began to roll. The pilots,
William J. Cooper and John Piowaty, strug-
gled to regain control. Finally, they man-
aged to pull the nose skyward, barely skirt-
ing a hillside, and to lumber back to El
Salvador.
The incident, recounted by crewmen, was
just one of many close calls in the shaky,
brief lifespan of the clandestine arms-deliv-
ery network. Between April and October of
last year, the supply operation airdropped
tons of weapons each week to the Nicara-
guan rebels, including rifles, grenades, mor-
tars and ammunition, crewmen said.
The operation ? now under investigation
by a special prosecutor and Congress ? was
manned by a revolving cast of retired com-
bat veterans, many of them middle-age men
who longed for another taste of wartime.
They were recruited to keep the contras
armed while President Reagan worked to
persuade Congress to lift a 1984 ban on
direct or indirect U.S. military aid to the
rebels.
Despite that ban, the _supolv overatiol
known within the National Security Council
as "Project Democracy," received support
from at least two active-duty US. officers
and teams of CIA operatives, was closely
monitored by 1.t. Col. Oliver L. North and is
believed by the Tower commission to have
been illegally funded with millions of dol-
lars diverted from secret U.S. arms sales to
11.0.
The assistance was not nearly enough. As
participants tell it, the operation was
plagued by sloppy management, internal
bickering and equipment problems.
Crewmen tell of daring, successful weap-
ons drops into Nicaragua ? and of drivers
who didn't show up to take them to the
airport, a $22,000 high-tech radio communi-
cations network that never worked and a
newly bought plane that made it to its desti-
nation only after a spare engine and a refrig-
erator were tossed out a cargo door.
"Command and control were so screwed
up that ... we never knew who an order
came from or whether it was legitimate,"
said Iain Crawford, 30, a former Green Beret
who worked in the supply operation be-
tween March arid May last year.
Added William K. "Jake" Wehrell, 51, a
pilot who flew weapons missions in August
and September, "We frequently had no food
in the house, no gas in the car and we
couldn't get fuel to take off. We had the
wrong planes for the missions, and they
were ancient mechanically."
?
In September, as Congress debated ending
the ban on military aid and approving a $100
million contra aid package, the pace of the
supply operation quickened, crewmen say.
Tey understoodAelthennezaInELLaEga
were trying to win the favor of the CJA
so that could
contras in the future ? under lucrative
federal contracts.
nd Cooper,the operation's chief pilot,
?ded to friends that he envisioned trans-
forming the fledgling operation into' an-
other Air America ? the giant CIA-rim
airline that flew supplies to U.S. servicemen
during the Vietnam War.
As the pressure mounted to drop more and
more arms to the contras, the crewmen say,
the pilots decided in mid-September to begin
flying into southern Nicaragua in the day-
time so the airdrops would be more precise.
It proved to be a fatal decision. On Oct. 5,
an arms-filled, C-123K cargo plane was shot
down over southern Nicaragua in broad day-
light by a teenage Sandinista soldier, and the
operation came to a fiery halt.
Cooper, who piloted the plane, and two
others were killed. The only survivor was
Eugene Hasenfus, who was captured by the
Sandinistas and readily talked about the
secret supply effort.
What follows is a detailed portrait of the
supply operation, based on interviews in the
last four months with the men who flew the
missions, repaired the planes and provided
other support. In all, more than two dozen
crewmen, equipment suppliers and other
sources in the United States, Central Amer-
ica and Canada were contacted. Some spoke
only on the condition that their names not
be published. Many agreed to tell their sto-
ries on the record, for the first time. How-
ever, the men who recruited and supervised
them ? including two key figures who re-
cently were granted immunity by Congress,
Edward T. de Garay and Robert C. Dutton ?
declined to be interviewed.
?
The advertisement sought aircraft me-
chanics to work at an Air Force base in
Southern California. But applicants who re-
sponded learned that American National
Management Corp. (ANMC), a management
services,company in the Washington suburb
of Vienna, Va., was looking for men to go to
Central America.
The ad, buried in the classified section of
the Dec. 2, 1985, issue of Air Force Times, was
the first known case of recruiting for the
contra supply network.
When Jim Stanford, an aircraft mechanic,
sent his resume in February, he said, he
received a telephone call from ANMC's presi-
dent, Richard B. Gadd, a retired U.S. Air
Force commando who has received federal
contracts for several covert military opera-
tions. Gadd told Stanford that after working
for six months in Honduras, he could move
to the advertised job in California or an-
other Air Force base in Florida, Stanford
said.
Stanford was not interested in going to
Central America. But he spoke to a friend.
who was hired by Gadd to repair aircraft.
The friend, who asked to remain anony-
mous, told another mechanic, 61-year-old
Jim Steveson of San Diego, Calif.. who was
hired to procure aircraft spare parts.
To find pilots and parachute riggers, the
operation's organizers tapped into' several
close-knit circles of retired military men
experienced in covert operations.
John C. Cupp, a former Army Special
Forces sergeant who works for Gadd, used
his contacts at Fort Bragg in North Carolina
to recruit from "an old boy network" of ex-
commandos, crewmen say. At least three
recruits, including Crawford, had been
members of the Delta Force, the elite coun-
terterrorist unit that participated in the dis-
astrous 1980 hostage-rescue mission in Iran.
The network also hired more than a half-
dozen veterans of Air America. Most were
recruited by Cooper, an ex-Air America pilot
who in April became the network's manager
from the operation's base in El Salvador.
The crewmen, many of them veterans of
Vietnam or Korea, say they were drawn to
the operation by a desire to fight commu-
nism and, for some, a nostalgic yearning for
the battlefront.
"There's always an old war horse in all of
us who wants to make that one last run,''
said Joseph Smith, 49, a military surplus
dealer from Shirleysburg, Pa., who provided
parachutes for the operation but rejected an
offer to work in Central America because of
medical problems. "Even after 40 to SO mis-
sions in Korea and some in Vietnam, you
want that one last time, just to get the
adrenaline flowing."
Money, too, was a factor.
Depending on the job, their pay ranged
from about $2,500 to $4,250 a month, plus
mission bonuses. Called "project pay" or
simply "P-pay" by the crewmen, it paid a
pilot an extra $1,000 for flying into Nicara-
gua, while a parachute rigger, who pushed
weapons out of the plane, could earn a bonus
of up to 5500.
The crewmen, who generally worked 90-
day contracts, said they did not know the
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source of the money or me weapons. They
said their paychecks and bank wire trans-
fers came from a maze of companies in
Quarryville, Pa.; Vienna, Va.; Miami and Pan-
ama that provided cover for the operation.
The bonus money was paid in cash.
Said one mechanic, "I just took my money
and done my job."
?
The first weapons drop into Nicaragua was
planned for April 10. At the time, the supply
operation owned two Vietnam-vintage cargo
planes, a DHC-4 Caribou and a C-123K. Nei-
ther was in any condition to ily me mission.
Igstead) Crawford said, Gadd leased an L-
}06 civilian car:Lo plane for S4,000 an hour
from Southern Air Transport, a Miami7based
airline once owned by the CIA that had hpen
contracted to transport weapons from_Portu-
gal to the contra supply operation.
"They needed a good bird and the L-100
was a Cadillac," explained Crawford, who
flew on the first mission.
According to Crawford, Army Col. James
Steele, commander of U.S. military forces in
El Salvador, helped plot the flight path of
the L-100 into Nicaragua. Steele, he said,
"told us where the radar sites were and who
would be looking for us. He pointed out
three of them fon a map) and pointed out the
armament sites in Nicaragua."
tams of CIA operatives in Costa Rica had
helped plan the inventory of weapons to be
delivered and had also relayed the location
of the rebel units, said contra sources.
Crawford- said the weapons ? seven tons
of rifles, grenades and ammunition ? were
first flown from Aguacate, a secret Hondu-
ran military airstrip used by the contras, to
Ilopango, a Salvadoran air force base in San
Salvador, where they were repacked and
loaded on the L-100.
On the night of April 10, the Southern Air
crew flew into Nicaragua. But though they
found the area targeted for the weapons
drop, they couldn't spot the contras. After
flying in circles for more than a half-hour,
they gave up and returned to El Salvador.
The next night, the crew tried again.
This time, the contras lit bonfires on a
mountain to outline the drop zone ? and
Crawtord pushed the weapons out the cargo
door.
42ws of the successful mission was re-
laved to INK aide North April 12 in_a "secure
message" from a CIA field officer, the Tower
commission reported last month. In addi-
tion, Crawford said that on April 20 he
personally briefed North about the mission
on a private jet flight from El Salvador to
Washington. North nodded in approval and
seemed relieved, Crawford said.
The arms drops continued through the
summer, with as many as three or four
missions per day flying over northern and
southern Nicaragua. But there were fre-
quent delays and postponements.
Sometimes, the drivers assigned to take
the crews to Ilopango from their three
rented San Salvador "safe houses" never
showed up. Other times, the crew arrived to
find that the planes had no fuel.
In late July, a dispute with the powerful
Salvadoran general who ran the base, Rafael
Bustillo, cost the crewmen tne ill cards ?
identifying them as U.S. military advisers ?
that allowed them on the base at Ilopango.
Most eventually got new cards, but several
days were wasted.
On top of all of these problems, the supply
operation's aging cargo planes ? two Cari-
bous and two C-123Ks purchased for a total
of more than $1.5 million. ? constantly
broke down.
The first plane, a Caribou purchased in
Canada in January, barely survived its ini-
tial flight to El Salvador. After one of its two
engines died, the crew had to toss out an
expensive spare engine and a refrigerator to
keep it airborne. The aircraft, which one
mechanic described as "just a pile of junk,"
required a complete overhaul.
The second plane purchased. a C-123K, was
the one that struck a tree during the aborted
June mission and was out of commission for
more than two weeks while mechanic Steve-
son repaired it in Miami. Another C-123K,
bought in California in July, broke down
twice in Texas before finally hobbling into
Miami for repair.
Wehrell, who flew the Caribous, recalled
that on his last flight in September, the fuel
and temperature gauges, as well as the ta-
chometer for the left engine, weren't work-
ing properly.
"I was actually opening the window of the
airplane doing my I.pre-flightl checks and
listening to the sound of the engine instead
of looking at my instruments because my
instruments didn't work," he said.
Even when the planes were flight-worthy,
the missions were not always successful,
crewmen say. In some cases, the contras
either failed to show up at the correct drop
zone or the airdrops were made in the wrong
place. Sometimes, planes had to turn around
without dropping anything, wasting up to
six hours in the air.
September stating they had been exposed to
"classified information" that was "highly
sensitive" and that they could be prosecuted
by the US. government under espionage
laws if they disclosed any aspects of their
work.
"I understand that this agreement may be
retained by the U.S. government for its fu-
ture use in any manner within the scope of
this project," the agreement stated.
The agreement referred to a company
called "CAS Ltd.," an apparent reference to
Corporate Air Services, an obscure air char-
ter firm in Quarryville, Lancaster County.
The firm, headed by Edward T. deGaray,
employed many of the crewmen, including
Hasenfus.
? Telephone logs show at least 11 tele-
phone calls placed in mid-September from
the crewmen's safe houses in El Salvador to
North's White House office. In addition to
his April visit, it has been reported that
North flew to Central America immediately
after the Oct. 5 plane crash.
The Senate Intelligence Committee re-
ported that North, before he was fired from
his White House post in November, was
"working hard on support for the (contra)
fighters." To keep the contras armed, he
enlisted retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Richard
V. Secord, the committee and the Tower
commission reported.
Secord, who was also deeply involved in
the U.S. arms sales to Iran, arranged for
Gadd to organize the contra arms delivery
operation, crewmen say. The two have had
ties dating back to their days together in the
Air Force.
Gadd recruited the crewmen, bought
planes and equipment, established bases of
operation in El Salvador and at a remote
airstrip in Costa Rica and set up a radio link
between Central America and his offices in
northern Virginia. The costly radio system
was based in a posh penthouse apartment in
Alexandria ? but it never worked properly,
according to crewmen and radio operators.
To handle problems in the weapons-supply
operation, Secord dispatched a business asso-
ciate retired Air Force Col. Robert C. Dut-
ton, to take charge of the operation in late
spring and again in September, crewmen
said. When he arrived in the fall ? with
Congress on the verge of passing the $100
million aid package ? he ordered the crew-
men to speed up their delivery schedule, the
crewmen said.
Explained pilot Elmo Baker of Weather-
ford, Texas: "I think the thinking was, 'Let's
deliver what we have to somebody because
the cavalry is coming, the MOO million au-
thorized contra aid is around the corner.'"
Other crewmen said the supply network's
organizers were vying for a federal contract
to deliver the congressionally approved aid.
"Everything hinged on the $100 million,"
said a radio operator, who was in close
contact with Cupp. "They wanted to be able
to transport the stuff, and they were work-
ing on a contract with the government to do
it."
"You can't just dump it out in the jungle,"
explained one crew member. "There's a hell
of a lot of money being hauled 'around in
that plane."
?
Dick Gadd sometimes referred to "the
benefactor" and "the principals." Bill
Cooper spoke of meeting with "the bosses"
in Miami. Other than these veiled refer-
ences, however, crewmen say they never
knew who really was behind their opera-
tion.
Nevertheless, the backgrounds of leaders
of the operation, as well as telephone re-
cords of calls made from the crew members'
Salvadoran safe houses, show that the net-
work had powerful ties to the U.S. govern-
ment stretching all the way up to the White
House.
? Felix Rodriguez, one of three former CIA
agents who assisted the crewmen in El Salva-
dor, met with Vice President Bush or his
staff 16 times since 1983, Bush's office has
acknowled;ied. Rush, who met -rsonall
with Rodriguez t ? ree times. as ? enied
knowing that Rodriguez was involved in
assisting the contras.
? Several crewmen, including Steveson,
were asked to sign secrecy agreements in
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At first, Baker said, Dutton tried to "force-
feed" the contras by ordering the plane
crews to airdrop arms regardless of whether
they could see the rebels.
"Dutton said we're going to go down there
and drop this where they the contras' say
they are and then tell them, We dropped it.
Go find it ... ' " Baker said.
"Force-feeding" was tried only once, Baker
said. The weapons landed seven miles away
from the contras, he said, and it took the
rebels nearly four days to find the equip-
ment.
"After that there was no such thing as
force-feeding," Baker said.
?
It was obvious to the crewmen that accu-
racy was a problem for the air drops. The
contras had trouble pinpointing their posi-
tions in the remote jungle of southern Nica-
ragua, while the pilots were handicapped by
often useless navigational equipment.
In mid-September, the pilots adopted a new
strategy: daytime missions. And at first, the
three-times-a-week flights went smoothly. "It
was an intensive effort," said Baker. "We put
a lot down there, probably more than they
[the contras' could lug off."
Cooper was especially driven, said crew-
men. Once the $100 million aid began flow-
ing, he told them, the operation could be-
come a new Air America. "A lot of people
were thinking about what happened in Viet-
nam," said one pilot. "They were fantasizing
what a big, tremendous thing this was going
to be down there."
According to Baker, Cooper dreamed of
heading the new airline.
On Sunday, Oct. 5, Cooper took off for
Nicaragua in a C-123K with co-pilot Wallace
Sawyer, parachute rigger Eugene Hasenfus
and a contra radio operator. Security appar-
ently was not on their minds: They carried
IDs, business cards and other documents
connected with the operation, and Cooper
chose to fly a particularly hazardous route
? directly across the southern end of Lake
Nicaragua, an easy target for Sandinista ra-
dar.
It would be the supply operation's last
secret mission.
?
In the days that followed the crash, the
remaining crewmen and the supply net-
work's organizers scrambled to salvage what
was left of their operation and shield it from
the public.
On Tuesday, Oct. 7, Salvadoran Gen. Bus-
tillo told the crewmen that the two Caribous
parked at Ilopango were no longer welcome.
"He was afraid that reporters would come on
the base," said pilot David Johnson, 31, of
McAllen, Texas. "He told us the airplanes
must be off the base by 6 a.m. the next day."
Johnson and the other pilots flew the
planes to the still-secret Honduran base at
Aguacate.
Meanwhile, in Miami, Steveson worked
through the night to complete repairs on the
surviving C-123K. About 3 a.m., Piowaty and
John McRainey, who had been on leave, flew
the plane to Aguacate.
Three days later, the crewmen boarded
commercial flights from El Salvador to the
United States. The pilots were told they
might be asked to recover the planes in
Honduras; others were told they were no
longer needed.
Only one pilot was called back. In Novem-
ber, long after Hasenfus' disclosures made
headlines around the world, the pilot was
instructed to return to Central America to
determine if the operation could be resur-
rected.
The planes were still at Aguacate. he
found. But there was nothing else left of the
operation.
"It was totally dead," he said.
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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000301950001-6