AIDE TO BUSH SAYS NEITHER KNEW OF FRIEND'S LINK TO CONTRA ARMS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000100510008-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 26, 2011
• Sequence Number: 8
• Publication Date: December 13, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2011/04/26: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100510008-9
ARTICLE APFVjFZD
ON PAS NEW YORK TIMES
13 December 1986
Aide to Bush Says Neither Knew
OFFriend's Link to Contra Arms;
By R. W. APPLE Jr.
Special to The New York Times
WASHINGTON, Dec. 12 - Wcel , Several American officials have said
President Bush's national security ad-
viser, Donald P. Gregg, said today that
neither he nor Mr. Bush knew until Au-
gust that Mr. Gregg's prot6g6, a for-
mer employee of the Central Intelli-
gence Agency, was deeply involved in
"private" arms shipments to the
rebels in Nicaragua.
Mr. Gregg's friendship with the
prot6gE, Felix Rodriguez, which dates
to 1970, and his own long service in the
C.I.A. have fostered wide speculation
that he, and possibly Mr. Bush, were
among the Reagan Administration's
links to a clandestine arms-supply net-
work.
But Mr. Gregg insisted today, in the
only interview he has given since the
existence of the arms-supply network
became known, that neither he nor Mr.
Bush had any links with the network
beyond knowifig Mr. Rodriguez and
that they had known nothing of the di-
version to the rebels of some profits
from arms sales to Iran.
Ends Weeks of Silence
The Vice-Presidential aide's agree-
ment to an interview, after weeks of
refusing to answer press queries, had
the approval of senior members of Mr.
Bush's staff. It indicated that the Vice
President felt compelled to take new
steps to lessen the political damage'
caused by repeated suggestions that he
and Mr. Gregg were hiding something.
In the interview, Mr. Gregg acknowl-
edged that he introduced Mr. Rodri-
guez to Mr. Bush and to senior State
and Defense Department officials in
January 1985. The officials obtained a
job for Mr. Rodriguez, who used the
alias Max Gomez, with the air force of
El Salvador, Mr. Gregg said, and Mr.
Rodriguez advised the Salvadorans on
anti-guerrilla tactics.
Mr. Gregg said that in addition to Mr.
Bush, he introduced Mr. Rodriguez at
that time to Thomas R. Pickering, then
the United States Ambassador in El
Salvador; Langhorne A. Motley, then
the Assistant Secretary of State for
Inter-American Affairs, and Nestor D.
Sanchez, Deputy Assistant Secretary
of Defense for Inter-American Affairs.
In May, Mr. Gregg said, Mr. Rodriguez
met with Mr. Bush and Edwin G. Corr,
the Ambassador to El Salvador, in the
Vice President's office.
Mr. Corr closely monitored the supply
network's operations from his office in
San Salvador, but he has denied that he
"supervised" the flights.
In August, Mr. Gregg declared, he re-
ceiveda telephone call from Mr. Rodri-
guez - one in a long series - in which
Mr. Rodriguez expressed concern
about the continuity of supplies to the
contras, as the Nicaraguan rebels are
known. Mr. Gregg said that shortly af-
terward he held a meeting in his office
in the Executive Office Building be-
tween Mr. Rodriguez and C.I.A. offi-
cials.
According to Mr. Gregg, Mr. Rodri-
guez expressed concern that the pri-
vate network might be disbanded be-
fore official American military aid,
newly authorized by Congress, could
begin to be delivered.
Asked whether he inquired of Mr. Ro-
driguez, a Cuban-American veteran of
the Bay of Pigs invasion, how long he
had been involved in the arms ship-
ments, exactly what he did and whom
he reported to, Mr. Gregg replied: "No,
I did not. I saw my role as putting him
together with the knowledgable people,
and I did nothing at all beyond that."
Called Dedicated Anti-Communist
"I find it quite understandable that
he should have become involved,," Mr.
Gregg said. "He was down there, he's a
dedicated anti-Communist, and a lot of
this arms-supply stuff was going on. He
knew some of the people, I'm sure. I
don't feel he pulled the wool over my
eyes. We still talk a lot; we're still fast
friends."
Mr. Rodriguez's activities were first
disclosed after one of the supply net-
work's cargo planes was shot down
over Nicaragua on Oct. 5, about two
months after the meeting in Mr.
Gregg's office.
American crewmen said Mr. Rodri-
guez, a burly 45-year-old, had helped
get them permission to operate flights
from the Ilopango military air base
near El Salvador's capital, had ob-
tained false identity cards for them
from the Salvadoran Air Force and had
done other favors for them.
Shortly thereafter, it was disclosed
that Mr. Gregg had interceded for Mr.
Rodriguez and hdd introduced him to
Mr. Bush, who met with him three
times in all, twice in his Washington of-
fice and once at a rally in Miami.
The Vice President publicly de-
scribed the Cuban-American as a "pa-
triot." The revelations raised questions
about the possibility that Mr. Bush, a
former Director of Central Intelli-
gence, had been involved in the diver-
sion of funds from the Iran arms sales.
Mr. Bush's chances for the 1988 Re-
publican Presidential nomination may
have been damaged as a result.
Involvement Is Denied
In an hour-long conversation, Mr.
Gregg categorically denied that he or
Mr. Bush had had "any involvement
whatsoever" in raising funds for the
contras, in the diversion of arms sale
revenues, or in the operations of the
clandestine supply network in Central
America.
Mr. Gregg worked for the C.I.A. from
1951 to 1979, when he joined the Na-
tional Security Council staff. He re-
tained his links to the agency until Au-
gust 1982, when he went to work for Mr.
Bush. He said he had made it "an infor-
mal rule not to reach back to my
agency career while working for the
Vice President" - a rule he said he
had broken only once, in his continuing
relationship with Mr. Rodriguez.
"Felix knows more about lowpinten-
sity insurgency than almost anyone
else alive," he said.
Mr. Gregg displayed an autographed
color photograph of Mr. Rodriguez
standing next to a small helicopter in
El Salvador. He said the Iwo men
talked often on the telephone and some-
times exchanged letters. Mr. Rodri-
guez, he said, has left Central America
and is now recovering from a serious
hernia operation somewhere in south-
ern Florida.
"I have a Felix file right there in my
desk," Mr. Gregg added, "and every
bit of paper in it relates exclusively to
El Salvador."
Between 1970 and 1972, Mr. Gregg
headed C.I.A. operations in the area of
South Vietnam around Saigon, which
was known as III Corps. In those years,
he said, Mr. Rodriguez developed
under his direction a system using low-
flying helicopters, warplanes and
small airborne squads for destroying
entrenched Vietcong positions.
At that time, Mr. Gregg continued,
his boss was the C.I.A. station chief in
Saigon, Theodore G. Shackley. Now re-
tired from the agency, Mr. Shackley
played a key early role in setting up
arms transfers to Iran, but Mr. Gregg
said he had not maintained close con-
tact with Mr. Shackley, seeing him only
occasionally at weddings and other
such events, and had no knowledge of
Mr. Shackley's links to the Iranians.
Mr. Gregg also denied knowing sev-
eral key figures in the arms-supply net-
work - Rafael Quintero and Luis
Posada Carriles, two other Bay of Pigs
veterans who have worked for the
C.I.A., and retired Maj. Gen. Richard V.
Secord, one of the organizers of the net-
work.
I/
Approved For Release 2011/04/26: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100510008-9