EX-CIA AGENT REJECTS ARMS FLOW

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000200740009-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 25, 2010
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: April 30, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/29: CIA-RDP91-00587R000200740009-2
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
30 April 1986
EX-CIA AGENT REJECTS ARMS FLOW
NEW HAVEN, CT
STAT
A former CIA agent assigned to document the flow of arms from Nicaragua to
El Salvador says he was released from the agency after publicly revealing he
found no evidence of such supply lines.
David Macmichael, who served with the CIA for two years beginning in March
1981, said the area-is too closely watched by the United States for Nicaraguans
to attempt smuggling arms into El Salvador.
''If you were going to be sending arms in to El Salvador, the last place in
Central America you'd be sending them from is Nicaragua, because there is no
place that is more heavily survelled by the United States than Nicaragua,''
Macmichael said in an interview prior to addressing a church group Wednesday.
Macmichael, who is currently a senior research fellow at the Council of
Hemispheric Affairs in Washington, said his visit to Connecticut is part of tour
he is making throughout the United States to discuss U.S. involvement in Central
America.
Macmichael said his two-year contract to work for the CIA was not renewed
after he began publicly contradicting Reagan administration assertions that the
rebels in El Salvador were being supplied with arms by the Soviet Union through
the Nicaraguan government.
Evidence gathered by the CIA instead shows only a small arms flow which is
believed to be coming mostly from about 20,000 Salvadoran refugees who live in
Nicaragua and support the FMLN rebels in El Salvador, he said.
''To me, it is just as likely that these people, because they support the
FMLN, find ways to get things to their friends and relations as it is that Irish
people living in Boston or some of the other east coast cities here do find ways
to get loads of arms over to the IRA," he said.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/29: CIA-RDP91-00587R000200740009-2