CONTRA AID PUBLIC TEST FOR AGENCY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000200740005-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 25, 2010
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: October 21, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/29: CIA-RDP91-00587R000200740005-6
JIHI
COVER STORY
Contra aid
public test
for agency
'You won't By ~p ~~
see the
Sandinista
government
seriousy
threatened'
USA TODAY
21 October 1986
better airplanes" than the one Ha-
senfus parachuted from to deliver
supplies to contra troops, he says.
And, Cline says, the military aid
could draw "some very confronta-
tional activity" from Nicaragua:
"They're going to go bleating to the
Russians and Cubans for help."
^ Robert White, U.S. ambassador
to El Salvador in 1980.81, is con-
vinced there is some truth to unom-
dal reports that Salvadoran army
veterans are being recruited to fight
for the contras.
White adds: "You can expect to
see a lot more people killed, but you
on't see the Sandinista government
riously threatened. That's not with-
the c act of the contras
.'
.
The USA's clandestin 8DWk a former
army is going back to analyst, says the Sandinistas, an-
against Nicaragua's leftist San- ticipating an eventual full-scale inva-
The CIA's secret agents
slink into action wielding $100
million in new aid from Con-
gress and a fearsome reputa-
tion for subversion throughout
Latin America
The target: Nicaragua's Marxist-oriented, revolutionary
government - which overthrew dictator Anastasio So-
moza, an ally of the USA. in 1979.
The means: Military training and weapons for an expand-
ed and stronger guerrilla army, para.military operations,
espionage, subversion - almost everything short of politi-
cal assassination or sending USA troops.
The game plan: What CIA director William Casey calls a
"proven method of overthrowing' governments - a combi-
nation of "'nagging insurgent military pressure" and "with-
drawal of domestic and international support"
The secret war is over for Eugene Hasenfus, a captured
mercenary and ex-marine from Wisconsin who is Standing
trial in Managua for aiding the Nicaraguan rebel forces.
Reagan 's signing of contra-aid legislation last weekend
makes it legal for the intelligence agency to resume the
most public and controversial "covert" operation in its his-
tory - advising and supplying Nicaraguan rebels.
The funds will begin flowing once Reagan signs a nation,
al security directive spelling out the details. One certain re?
striction: No USA agency or adviser can be caught within 20
miles of the Nicaraguan border.
The same precaution against a di-
rect confrontation between the USA
and Nicaragua applies to military
war games in neighboring Honduras.
Some of the notsor+et new op-
eration is above-oard: From $70
million in military funds will come
training of contra field commanders,
perhaps at U.S bases. And $30 mil-
lion is for medicine, clothes and oth-
er "humanitarian" aid.
The CIA's actual strategy, and the response, are still being
keptSandinista der the cloak. But there are
some willing to speculate-
N Ray (line, a former CIA deputy
director, sees "a race against time"
between the contras and Sandinistas.
The CIA should be able to afford
lion by USA troops, have recently
changed their defensive strategy.
"Their strategy had been to go im-
mediately to the mountains and be-
gin a prolonged war," he said. "Now
it includes a determined defense of
urban areas, They will defend house
by house and barrio by barrio."
^ Robert Lee Woodward, Tulane
University historian, says the Nicara-
guans "have been trying to keep it
low-key," but now he wouldn't be sur-
prised to see Cuban combat troops
deployed against the contras.
^ Hans-Joachim Maitre of Boston
University, a contra backer, thinks
the CIA will quickly train Nicara-
guans as "deliverymen" on the sup.
ply flights, replacing USA mercenar-
ies like Hasenfus.
And in exchange for the boost in
military hardware, he says, the con-
tras "will be forced to come up with
a real strategy for fighting the war,
not just getting by day to day as they
have been."
^ Robert Leiken, a pro-contra an-
alyst at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, says the cutoff
in USA military aid two years ago
"put the contras way behind the
curve." Meanwhile, the Sandinista
military has gotten bigger, stronger
and more capable "in terms of com-
munications, equipment, transport"
He foresees a Sandinista offensive,
perhaps another incursion against
rebel bases in Honduras.
^ Laurence Birns of the Council
on Hemispheric Affairs believes the
C-123 downed by the Sandinistas two
weeks ago was taking supplies to a
new "second front" the rebels and
their backers are attempting to open
"pell-mell" in southern Nicaragua.
While the CIA's role is now legal,
critics of Reagan's Nicaragua policy
have charged "the company," as its
operatives call it, or the National Se-
curity Council, or both, jumped the
gun. At issue is where between
12,000 and 20,000 rebel troops. most-
ly based on the Honduras border,
have been getting military supplies.
Congress tried to sever the CIA's
links with the contras in 1984, in the
public glare of learning that the
agency had directed the mining of
Nicaraguan harbors. Contra backers,
such as retired Maj. Gen. John K.
Singlaub, tried to sustain the rebel
cause with private aid.
All imported weapons, they said,
were bought with money in offshore
banks to avoid violating laws against
gun-r unning and fomenting foreign
revolutions from USA soil.
But the private backers had the
full support of Reagan, who kept
pushing for more direct, official mili-
tary help.
The US.-backed contras first re-
ceived CIA funds - for 500 guerril-
las - in 1981. Until Congress cut off
the aid, upwards of $100 million was
channeled through the CIA to the re-
bels.
Adding to the suspicions of critics
were mysterious crashes of cargo
planes flying out of El Salvador and
Honduras, arrests of mercenaries in
Costa Rica and reports that secret
CIA funds were seeping into the con-
tra effort.
All these led to a widespread be-
lief that the CIA was in fact never far
from the battlefront
"The CIA has never been out of
this thing," said L.eiken. Last fail, the
CIA was authorized to share intelli-
gence with the contras and give
them new communications gear.
The latest evidence of a CIA link
came from Hasenfus, who claimed
he and the rest of his crew were part
of a network of veterans and ex-CIA
types recruited by the agency to air-
lift weapons and supplies into Nica-
ragua - through El Salvador and
Honduras - for the rebels.
Singlaub denied that he was be-
hind the downed weapons-supply
sight, but described the air-cargo
network around Central America as
a loose fraternity of job-hungry pilots
competing for a mixed bag of jobs,
some legal, some not
A plane such as the one downed in
Nicaragua, he said, "could be haul-
ing cantaloupes to Texas one week
and the next week hauling bullets to
freedom fighters in Nicaragua."
William Leary, a CIA expert at the
University of Georgia, says even now
that the CIA is running the show,
hired hands like Hasenfus and the
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rest of the crew of the downed C-123
"will be doing what they've been do-
ing for a different employer."
Leary said that two years ago,
while researching a book about Air
America, an airline that flew CIA
missions in Southeast Asia, he ran
into William Cooper, the ex-CIA pilot
who was killed Dying with Hasenfus
on the supply mission.
Leary says the network of former
Marines, Green Berets and clandes.
tine operatives includes "men in
their 50s, who have a particular ex-
pertise. You just don't And on a street
corner people who can do airdrops
at night in strange locations."
Cooper, he said, "did hundreds of
those in Southeast Asia. It's a pretty
arcane skill."
Bernard McMahon, staff director
of the Senate Intelligence Commit-
tee, charged with helping to oversee
the covert program, says it will be le-
gal for the CIA to employ USA citi-
zens for action in Nicaragua, but
doesn't think it will be "necessary."
The administration adamantly de-
nied any oAlcial link with Cooper's
plane, but there was an intriguing
sidelight to the case.
Vice President George Bush, a for-
mer CIA director, said he had met
and admired an ex-CIA agent, "Max
Gomez," named by Hasenfus as the
organizer of USA-directed contra
supply Rights out of El Salvador's
main military airfield at Ilopango.
Gomez is a legendary, Cuban-born
clandestine agent who wears a watch
taken from Che Guevara when he
was captured.
Former agents like Gomez, ex-
perts say, only need to be kept at
enough distance to make a CIA deni-
al plausible.
A good thing to remember when
following the open "covert" war in
Central America, ex-CIA man Mac-
Michael advises, is: "If it's a properly
done CIA operation, a CIA connec.
tion can't be shown."
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