CONTRA COVERAGE-PAID FOR BY THE CIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000402950003-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 26, 2012
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: March 1, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

S7 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/26: CIA-RDP90-00965R000402950003-2
f . Uri PA12F a I March/Apri 1 198/
Contra coverage - i~id
for by the CIA
The Company goes to work in Central America
c7 by MARTHA HONEY
I n 1977, after a Senate Select Com-
mittee on Intelligence report dis-
closed that the Central Intelligence
Agency had maintained working rela-
tionships with fifty American reporters
over a period of years. the agency an-
nounced new rules that barred it from
entering into "any paid or contractual
relationship" with U.S. journalists, in-
cluding free-lancers and stringers. The
regulations say nothing about entering
into such relationships with foreign jour-
nalists. or about allowing agency oper-
atives to pose as foreign journalists. In
Central America. it appears that the
agency is doing both.
Carlos Morales, a Costa Rican pro-
fessor of journalism, editor of the Uni-
versity of Costa Rica's liberal weekly La
Universidad. and former president of the
Costa Rican journalists' union. says that
at least eight Costa Rican journalists. in-
cluding three "top editors," receive
monthly payments from the CIA. either
directly or through contra groups with
offices in Costa Rica. "There may be
more, but these I know for certain be-
cause most are former students of mine.
and some have talked with me about it."
Morales says. ''Their job is to get into
Martha Honey is a stringer for The Times
and The Sunday Times of London. the BBC,
the Canadian Broadcasting Company, and
ABC. In 1985, she and her husband. Tom
.4sir'an. published a book that blamed the
CIA for the May 1984 bombing of Eden Pas-
tora s ,jungle headquarters - a bombing in
Which .4rirgan ssas injured and three other
journalists were killed. Honey and .4sirgan
are siting several individuals - including
contra leader Adolfo Calera and several for-
mer CIA officials - who they claim carried
out the bombing as part of'a plan to set up
a contra force in Costa Rica that would be
supported by a drug- and arms-smuggling
enterprise. The CIA has consistent/ denied
any connection with the Pastora bombing
an snit rug smuggling
the press stories. commentaries, or ed-
itorials attacking Nicaragua and sym-
pathetic to the contras.''
Morales says he began investigating
press payoffs after a former student con-
fessed to him that he was taking money
from the CIA to supplement a meager
salary. The eight journalists are each
paid 30.000 colones (about 5500) a
month. Morales says. The monthly sal-
ary of most journalists in Costa Rica is
about 20,000 colones, The Costa Rican
press has become increasingly hostile
toward Nicaragua over the last few
years. and Morales believes that stories
planted by CIA-paid journalists have
contributed to this trend.
One of the contra groups that paid
bribes to reporters in the past, according
to one of its former top officials. was
ARDE. the Costa Rica-based contra co-
alition that was headed by Eden Pastora.
The official. who asked that his name
not be printed, says that ARDE's press
secretary kept a list of "about half a
dozen names of local journalists" with
amounts of money listed alongside the
names. "I don't know how frequently
these people were paid. but my under-
standing was that they received pay-
ments regularly." the former official
says. He adds that since ARDE was fi-
nanced by the CIA. "this money must
also have come from the CIA.'' Pastora
himself has conceded that ARDE re-
ceived money from the CIA.
A fund for bribing journalists was also
maintained by the largest contra group.
the Nicaraguan Democratic Force
(FDN). according to Edgar Chamorro,
who was one of the group's seven di-
rectors and its press spokesman from
1981 until 1984. Chamorro now opposes
the contras as well as the Sandinistas. In
an affidavit submitted to the World Court
in September 1985. Chamorro said he
had been the paymaster. "I also received
money from the CIA to bribe Honduran
journalists and broadcasters to write and
speak favorably about the FDN and to
attack the government of Nicaragua and
call for its overthrow,'' Chamorro
stated. ''Approximately fifteen Hondu-
ran journalists and broadcasters were on
the CIA's payroll. and our influence was
thereby extended to every major Hon-
duran newspaper and radio and televi-
sion station." Chamorro added that CIA
agents told him the same tactic was being
used in Costa Rica. Moreover, accord-
ing to his affidavit. the budget for all his
press activities - including bribes -
was put together with the assistance of
a deputy station chief of the CIA and
paid out of Washington. in cash.
Paid-off journalists have helped plant
fictitious stories. Former ARDE com-
mander Pastora and some of his aides
recall that in January 1984, CIA agents
told them to distribute a release through
their press networks that gave the contras
credit for mining Nicaragua's harbors.
Ex-paymaster: Fortner contra leader
Eds;ur Charnorro vot money from the CIA
to bribe Honduran Journalists
to attack the Sandinistas in print
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/26: CIA-RDP90-00965R000402950003-2
 Declassified in Part- Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/26: CIA-RDP90-00965R000402950003-2
Free lance or mercenary?
Robert Thompson. who vi ent to Central
America to fight with the contras,
claims to be a reporter.
although the contras had played no role
in the operation. Aides say that Pastora
resisted the order, but eventually con-
sented after the release was rewritten in
language that sounded more like ARDE
and less like the CIA. In his affidavit.
Chamorro said that his group. too, was
told to take credit for the harbor mining. American also known as ''Mor-
On January 4. 1984. a CIA deputy sta-
tion chief woke him up at 2 .a.H.. Cha-
morro stated, handed him a press
release, and told him to read it over a
clandestine contra radio station. Al-
though ''we played no role in the min-
ing." Chamorro said, he nevertheless
read the release. Two months later. he
added. after a Soviet ship struck one of
the mines. "the same CIA agent in-
structed us to deny that one of 'our'
mines had damaged the ship."
Derv Dyer. editor of The Tico Times.
a respected English-language weekly in
Costa Rica, says she has seen her share
of fictitious stories. "Our most dramatic
and personal experience with disinfor-
mation," she says. came after the May
1984 bombing of a press conference at
Eden Pastora's jungle contra camp,
known as La Penca. One of three jour-
nalists who died in the bombing was
Linda Frazier. who worked for The Tico
Times, and the newspaper mounted an
energetic investigation.
"We saw, and uncovered as untrue,
stones that were planted for political
purposes in the local press.'' Dyer says.
"For instance. everybody got off track
because the first lead put out was that
the bomber was an ETA terrorist named
Jose Lujua Gorostiola [the ETA is a left-
ist Basque group[. But when we checked
through Associated Press, the so-called
suspect had been for months under house
arrest in France." Other false leads
pointed toward two suspects from Uru-
guay. toward the Sandinistas, and even
toward victim Linda Frazier. Dyer says.
''The impact was to delay the investi-
gation by days, if not weeks, so that the
trail got cold.'' More than three years
after the bombing. Costa Rican police
officials say all they know for certain is
that the bomb was planted by a man pos-
ing as a Danish journalist.
CIA spokesman Kathy Pherson
would not comment on allegations of
bribery. ''As an intelligence organiza-
tion. there is not a lot we can say." she
told the Revie~t. She added. however,
that while internal regulations adopted
in 1977 prohibit the agency's people
from posing as U.S. journalists, they say
nothing about operatives posing as for-
eign journalists.)
gan'' and ''Max Vargas.'' has
been posing as a foreign journalist. Vidal
carries a press card from the Interna-
tional Herald Tribune. which he says he
got from the newspaper's Chicago of-
fice. But the Tribune has no office in
Chicago. and Vidal is no journalist. He
has been working to help organize a
southern front for the contras out of
Costa Rica. and there is strong evidence
that he works for the CIA.
In a series of interviews conducted
over many months, Vidal admitted to
procuring arms and other military sup-
plies for the contras. to recruiting mer-
cenaries and training guerrillas, to
participating in raids into Nicaragua. and
to coordinating his efforts with unnamed
U.S. officials. Eden Pastora and other
elipe Vidal Santiago. a Cuban-
Nicaraguan rebels, as well as foreign
mercenaries aiding the contras, say that
Vidal is employed by the CIA. Vidal
himself says that he has worked with
f' John Hull. an American farmer in north-
ern Costa Rica who has been widely re-
ported to be a CIA liaison to the contras.
Vidal says that his press credentials have
helped him move into and out of Costa
Rica.
Robert Thompson. a former highway
patrolman from Florida, has also
claimed to be a reporter. In April 1985.
he and four other foreigners were ar-
rested by Costa Rican authorities on one
of John Hull's farms near the Nicaraguan
border. The five were charged with il-
legal possession of explosives and with
''making hostile acts against a neigh-
boring country." Nicaragua. At the time
of his arrest. Thompson said he was a
correspondent for Scripps Howard news-
papers (he was not), and while he was
in jail in Costa Rica he told visiting jour-
nalists that he had been on Hull's farm
only as a reporter and to do research for
a book. Thompson and two men arrested
with him left the country to avoid trial
after Hull made their bail.
Thompson did, in fact, publish an ar-
ticle about his experiences with the FDN
in Honduras and Nicaragua. in the Mem-
phis Commercial Appeal. Editor Wil-
liam Thomas says he had refused to
supply Thompson with press credentials
but did give him a letter saying he would
look at whatever Thompson wrote from
Costa Rica. He adds that The Commer-
cial Appeal has not run any more of
Thompson's articles. but that he consid-
ers him ''a legitimate tree-lancer in
Costa Rica.''
Several mercenaries who knew
Thompson in Honduras and Costa Rica
say that. like themselves. Thompson
came to Central America to work and
fight with the contras. They say he
brought with him battle gear and his
weapon of choice, a shotgun.
Even Sam Hall. an American who was
arrested in Nicaragua in December on
spy charges after he was found on a re-
stricted military air base, with maps con-
cealed in his socks. carried a press card.
A television correspondent who exam-
ined it says that, while it identifies Hall
as a journalist. it doesn't name any press
organization. Whether Hall ever tried to
use it is unknown. E
a.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/26: CIA-RDP90-00965R000402950003-2