HOW JAIL ESCAPEE JOINED REBELS' SUPPLY NETWORK

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000200910007-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 11, 2010
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: November 2, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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;cLE
AFIPFAIM
ON PAM
ILLON
~
ana UL Y VLGLIOTTA "far-fetched" the official U.S.
rre.u~a smll wnren
rienps, of. a Cuban. exile. accused of government denials.
tefrbrismt Posada, a one-time CIA agent. a
secre supply nef k to gheghim a new t c n tra Bay of Pigs veteran and explosives
after his' escape from a Venezuelan laiL last from a Venezue an prison. onl Venezu.
prat, telephone records and interviews elan authorities have accused Po.
show sada and Miami pediatrician Salvadoran phone records. show that lando Bosch of masterminding Or.
tails from. a San Salvador house rented, by a 1976 bombing that destroyed a
Ramon Medina" were placed to the Miami Cubana de Aviacion DC-8 airliner
homes or offices of a number of people with shortly after it took off from
.lose Ivnnet ons to. the accused bomber. Bridgetown, Barbados. Seventy.
I ia AtsaiOR . Among the recipients three died.
o a ca were tlsada's wife. his family Although the U.S. role in the
doctor 4nd a longtime friend,. Ilopango supply o ration remains
F4aene Haseafus the captive' Arttericarn ambiguous,iis clear from inter-
'flight.crewman, last' month, n4fRed '.hhdi-. views and documents that Posa.
Its as one of two Cuban' exile$ dilrectipg " da's friends broke him out of jail in
contra supply fiio{ts at a Salvadoran Air' a carat
paid that Medina and Posada were the same
person Now Posada's doctor and another
friend have acknowledged. in interviews
'hat Posada made the calls from the Medina
,ate houav.-
It is still unclear who ordered. controlled
.,nd paid for the contra supply effort
uamted from San Salvador's Ilopango Air
ling It , also unclear who authorized
Posada - whose whereabouts are un.
Knu~%n - ;u join it But the new esidence
-bows that the contra support svitem was
.-,-d ;n this instance to harbor an Interna-
fugitive under the noses ofttU S.
officials.
U.S. Officials have not denied
that they monitored the supply
operation, but maintained in inter.
views last week that they knew
nothing of Posada's participation.
"We obviously had no knowl.
edge of this man's presence in El
Salvador, if indeed he was there"
a White House spokesman said.'
'Far-fetched'
Intelligence and law enforce.
ment sources familiar with Cuban
exile activities said however, that
it was difficult to believe that the
appearance in El Salvador of a
man with Posada's extensive espi-
onage portfolio would have gone
unnoticed.
"There is no way Posada could
have gotten involved inside Ilopan.
go without some ICIA1 agency
involvement," said a Washington.
based law enforcement official. An
intelligence source described as
MIAMI HERALD
2 November 1986
How jail escapee joined
rebels' supply network
spirited him across the Caribbean
and took advantage of the clandes.
tine contra world to stash him in
Central America.
A 1977 CIA biography says
Posada, now 58, first received
demolition and weapons training
before the 1961 Bay of pigs
invasion. He formally joined the
CIA in 1965 as a military instruc.
tor and informant on the activities
of several Cuban exile organiza-
tions plotting to overthrow the
Communist government of Fidel
Castro.
In 1965, the CIA document says.
Posada collaborated briefly with
Guatemalan conspirators seeking
to tap his demolitions expertise for
a coup d'etat in that country. In
1967 he moved to Venezuela
where he held a variety of
high-level jobs in government
intelligence and special police
operations for seven years. In 1974
he resigned as operations chief of
the Venezuelan intelligence ser.
ice to set up his own security
agency.
CIA informant
Throughout the period, the
agency document said, Posada
remained on the CIA payroll,rou.
tinely passing along information
on Venezuelan secret police activi.
ties and Cuban exile affairs. Exiles
respected him as a dedicated
anti-Castro militant and a highly
rated counterinsurgency expert.
In June 1976 Posada - and
Bosch, among others - attended
an anti-Castroist "summit" in the
Dominican Republic, where nu.
merous terrorist missions were
assigned. A string of bombings
followed in Colombia, Panama,
Trinidad and Tobago and Barba.
dos.
Posada's above-ground career
abruptly ended in October 1976
when Venezuelan authorities ar-
rested him and Bosch as the
suspected "intellectual authors" of
the airliner bombing. Two young-
er men. Freddy Lugo and Hernan
Ricardo, Posada's part-time Vene.
zuelan photo technician. were
arrested for placing the bomb.
The case has languished in a
variety of Venezuelan courts for
10 years, during which Posada, a
"spirited and bold man," chafed at
the snail's pace of Venezuelan
justice, according to Salvador Ro-
mani, a Cuban exile leader in
Caracas. Posada twice tried and
failed to escape. He told Romani
and other friends after the second
attempt that "if he didn't get out
he was going to kill himself."
Posada, Romani said, "was a
desperate man."
The finally came, was easy, at when it
least in
the initial stages.
Venezuelan Cabinet ministers
later said Posada had been paying
key penitentiary officials a daily
stipend to buy their complicity in
his escape. In mid-1985 a friendly
exile couple sold his house for
about $11.000. sending half the
money to Posada and half to his
wife Nieves in Miami. On Aug. 18,
1985. after paying the equivalent
of $28.600 in all to prison authori.
ties. Posada walked out of the San
Juan de los Morros jail some 60
miles south of Caracas and disap-
peared. The source of the remain.
der of the bribe money is un.
known.
A Miami wholesaler and Bay of
figs veteran who said he had
spoken with one of two Cuban
exiles who aided Posada in his
escape said that Posada was told
while he was still in prison that a
job with the contras was waiting
for him in El Salvador.
Posada's Venezuelan lawyer,
Francisco Leandro Mora, would
not confirm this, but admitted that
the escape "was meticulously
planned" with plenty of outside
help. It was designed "to get Luis
out of the country within 24
hou
" h
----
rs
e
STAT
Conftnuei
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Forced to hide
According to Leandro Mora and
Venezuelan journalist Rafael del
Naranco, who later interviewed
Posada, the conspirators missed
signals in the first hours after the
escape, however, and were forced
to hide the fugitive in a Caracas
apartment building for about a
month. When public uproar over
the escape subsided, the conspira-
tors took Posada to another safe
house on Venezuela's Caribbean
coast. Leandro Mora and Del
Naranco said.
It is still unclear exactly how
much time Posada spent in this
second hideout. But he sent at least
two letters to friends in Caracas.
one dated Oct. 9, 1985, the other
dated Oct. 29.
The letters give a sense of
Posada's depression: "I am free,
but I feel a deep sadness because
my friends are still in prison."
Although he was trapped for the
moment, the network of Cuban
exiles and sympathizers that had
sprung him from jail now allowed
him to send messages to friends
and family more or less as he
wished: "Where I am there is a
in
ona the nine
left alone
street." he said.
Sometime late last fall. Posada
and his friends flew to a private
sugar plantation in the Dominican
Republic, the source said, changed
planes, then proceeded to a log.
ging camp in Honduras.
There, the wholesaler said. Po-
sada's friends provided him with a
Salvadoran passport - official-
looking but false. Duly document.
ed. Posada crossed into El Salva-
dor without incident and began his
new life as "Ramon Medina," the
source said.
Several Cuban American
sources in Miami said they be-
lieved that Jorge Mas Canosa.
chairman of the Cuban American
National Foundation and another
Bay of Pigs veteran, had used his
influential contacts in Washington
to arrange Posada's Ilopango job.
as Canosa denied this.
"I like the guy, but Posada is the
subject of judicial proceedings" in
Venezuela, Mas said Friday. "He
hasn't been found guilty, but due
to those circumstances I wouldn't
have gotten involved."
Another Bay of pigs veteran said
it was likely that Posada had been
any event. "like a chameleon" -
an expert in disguise.
Little is known about Posada's
work at Ilopango. Downed Ameri-
can crewman Hasenfus said "Me-
dina" was little more than an
errand boy for "Gomez." Other
sources suggest that Posada had
greater responsibility and certain-
ly had greater freedom of move-
ment.
Several times. Posada contacted
Hernan Ricardo, still jailed in
Venezuela for the Cuban jetliner
bombing - from several places.
One letter to Ricardo in late spring
included a photograph taken in
Penas Blancas, a tiny settlement
on the Nicaraguan border with
Costa Rica. Small groups of con-
tras have often worked in that
area.
In El Salvador, meanwhile, Po-
sada. Rodriguez, Hasenfus and
others working in the Ilopango
supply operation were routinely
using their safe-house telephones
to call family and friends in Miami
and elsewhere.
Posada called Miami physician
Dr. Alberto Hernandez from his
safe house July 23, records ob-
tained from the Salvadoran phone
utility ANTEL show.
Hernandez said last week that
he had been the Posada family
physician for years. "I talked
about medical treatment for his
family, and that's it," Hernandez
said of the call. "I didn't want to
get into any long discussion of his
situation."
Hernandez, a prominent physi-
cian active in both Cuban exile
causes and in providing medical
aid to wounded contras, heads an
informal committee that raises
funds on behalf of the Cuban
airliner defendants.
total absence of news, and I don't brought into the contra operation
know what's happening. Nieves by Felix Rodriguez, a longtime
will call you and will transmit Cuban American CIA agent whom
li will call
to a friend who will Vice President George Bush rec-
get it to me through a complex ommended as an adviser to the
system of communications," said Salvadoran Armed Forces. When
one letter. He enclosed a Miami Posada arrived, Rodriguez was
telephone number for his wife. already working in Ilopango as
Del Naranco said Posada spent a "Max Gomez."
bit over two weeks on the "We have been asked if Mr.
Venezuelan coast, then flew or Bush knew or knows Ramon
sailed to a "nearby island" which Medina," Steven Hart. the vice
Leandro Anaya identified as "Aru- President's spokesman, said last
ba. Bonaire or Curacao, tiny week. "The answer is no. The
Dutch territories just a few miles same answer holds for Ramon
off the beach. Posada or any other names or
The Miami wholesaler said that aliases."
the two men who eventually By April. Posada had set up
accompanied Posada across the housekeeping in a two-story stuc-
Caribbean were both middle-aged co house in a fancy San Salvador
anti-Castro activists from Miami, neighborhood. He apparently felt
with businesses and families. The comfortable enough to sit for an
older of the two exiles had been a interview with Miami -friend Er-
lieutenant in Cuba's Bureau of nesto Avino and Venezuelan
Anti-Communist Repression under nalist Del Naranco "somewhere u in
former strongman Fulgencio Batis- Central America."
ta
he said
Both m
,
.
en were Bay of
Pigs veterans who had worked for
several months in their off hours
raising money for and shipping
supplies to the contras.
'Unknown soldiers'
"Unknown soldiers" in the an-
ti-Communist struggle, the whole-
saler called them.
The wholesaler, who met Posa-
da in the U.S. Army and also knew
him in Venezuela. said the two
men stayed with the fugitive
throughout the odyssey.
'Like a chameleon'
Del Naranco's report said Posa-
da claimed to have undergone
extensive plastic surgery. The
Miami businessman said he was
certain that claim was untrue and
had been planted only to confuse
Posada's potential trackers. Posa-
da's attorney said his client was, in
One of its members is Bay of
Pigs veteran Syla Cuervo, an old
friend of Posada and the godfather
of Posada's son. Phone records
show that, in July, Posada called
Cuervo in Miami at least. twice
from his safe house. Cuervo said in
an interview that Posada may also
have called on other occasions. He
said they discussed family prob-
lems.
The records also show that
Posada's wife received phone calls
on July 13, 23, 27 and 29 from the
San Salvador house. Mrs. Posada
did not respond to messages left
Thursday and Friday.
Z
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Several Cuban' American
sources suggested in interviews
that Hernandez's and Cuervo's
Committee to Free Orlando Bosch
could have channeled money to
finance P
'
osada
s escap Bh
e.ot men
said they respected Posada's deci-
sion to flee prison, but had
opposed escape because it might
harm Bosch's efforts to free him.
self legally.
We didn't provide money to get
Posada out, ever," Hernandez said.
Besides Posada's own cailL,;~
someone phoned over 60 times this
summer from Posada's house tor'
Miami's Southern Air Transport; a`
one-time CIA firm that apparently
serviced Hasenfus' doomed contra
supply plane.
Rodriguez - Posada's co-work.
er - also apparently made liberal
use of Posada's safe house phone.
He called his family in Miami and
his friend Eugenio Rolando Marti- .
nez, a Bay of Pigs veteran and
convicted Watergate burglar. Mar.
tinez said Rodriguez asked for,
video movies. ,
And from the phone in Rodri
tthe z block from rented osadas someone way out of Venezuelan prison.
called the White House office of
Lt. Col. Oliver North, a close
supervisor of private contra aid"
efforts.
"While it is possible that the
L' S. government didn't know
about the presence of this guy
;Posada) in Ilopango, I find that
far -fetched," said an intelligence
source with long experience in
Cuban exile and contra affairs.
"Uncle Sam must have had a good
fix on him. It is more plausible
that Uncle Sam knew who he was,
and that his presence there did not
bother us."
Posada faces no criminal charg-'
es in the United States, law
enforcement records show.
Leonardo Somarriba, spokesman.
for the contra alliance UNO, said
he was unable to confirm that
Posada had worked at Ilopango.
He said the question was of "no:-
concern."
"If you hire an outfit to do a job
for you. it doesn't make you
responsible for everybody in that.
outfit," he said. "We are not a
government. We don't have the
capability to check everybody.
out...
Ilerald Washington correspon- s
dent Alfonso Chardv and staff;
it riter Tim Golden in San Salvador?,
contributed to this report.
Orlando Bosch; Charged with
Posada in airliner attack.
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