THE EDWIN WILSON CASE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000201190010-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 12
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 16, 2010
• Sequence Number: 10
• Publication Date: May 1, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/16: CIA-RDP91-00587R000201190010-0
RADIO TV REPORTS, INC.
4701 WILLARD AVENUE, CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND 20815 [phone]
FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS STAFF
PROGRAM N i g h t l i n e
May 1, 1986 11:30 P.M.
STATION WJLA-TV
ABC Network
Washington, D.C.
MAN: ...and who sold munitions to the Libyans. He was
a man who performed assassinations at their request. And he was
a man who brought his terrorism back to the United States and
tried to kill a bunch of American citizens.
TED KOPPEL: Tonight we'll go live to the federal
penitentiary at Marion, Illinois to talk with a man who's been
called "The Merchant of Death," former CIA agent Edwin Wilson,
convicted of selling arms and explosives to Libya's Colonel
Qaddafi. This is Wilson's first live television interview since
he was sent to prison five years ago.
Good evening. I'm Ted Koppel. And this is Nightline.
KOPPEL: Remember the opening sequence of the television
series Mission Impossible? It had its variations, but one part
of the sequence was always the same. When the instructions for
that week's particular mission were complete, the anonymous voice
on the tape would deliver the same grim message: "Fail, and the
Secretary will disavow all knowledge."
That, in a nutshell, is what Edwin Wilson would have you
believe happened to him, for real. He claims that everything he
did -- and he was involved in some very sleazy operations -- all
those things were done in behalf of the U.S. Government. Only
he, Wilson, got caught, nailed by a diligent prosecutor. And now
the Central Intelligence Agency and the U.S. Government in
general is disavowing all knowledge.
If that's true, Edwin Wilson is living a nightmare. More
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likely, however, as Nightline correspondent James Walker now
reports, is that Wilson was a man who created nightmares.
JAMES WALKER: Edwin Wilson has had his day in court.
Now he spends his days in prison serving sentences totaling 52
years.
MAN: Ed Wilson was a very cold-blooded, very ruthless,
very greedy man. He was a man who sold munitions to the Libyans.
He was a man who performed assassinations at their request. And
he was a man who brought his terrorism back to the United States
and tried to kill a bunch of American citizens.
WALKER: Wilson's courtroom battles involving his Libyan
activities began in 1982. Alexandria, Virginia, his first
conviction: 10 years for selling arms to Libya, an M-16 rifle
and several handguns. Federal prosecutors say this initial
shipment was a signal to Qaddafi that Wilson could deliver.
1983, Houston, Texas, his second conviction: 17 years
for shipping 21 tons of sophisticated plastic explosive to Libya
on board this chartered cargo plane.
1983, New York, New York, his third conviction: 25
years for trying to hire hit men to murder two federal prosecu-
tors and six witnesses.
MAN: Not only did we have hit lists that Wilson had
written in his own handwriting, which we authenticated and which
had his fingerprints on them, but we had a number of tapes.
WALKER: While in prison, Wilson is recorded trying to
hire a convicted murderer to kill a potential witness named
Krimmer (?).
[Unintelligible tape]
MAN: I think he was motivated by greed, to a very large
extent, and for revenge. He sought to even the score.
WALKER: Ironically, the first indictment against Wilson
charged him with conspiring to supply Libya with a terrorist
training program. That charge was dropped because it was a
difficult case to prosecute, and a Justice Department lawyer
later said it was like beating a dead horse.
But two weeks ago Nightline talked to former Green
Berets who say they worked in Libya for Ed Wilson.
MAN: My boss was Edwin Wilson. Edwin Wilson paid us.
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WALKER: Luke Thompson was on active duty when he led a
training team of retired Special Forces experts to Libya. They
received their orders from the Deputy Chief of Libyan Military
Intelligence.
LUKE THOMPSON: His requirements would be to train
airborne techniques, demolitions, manufacturing of bombs, booby
traps, monitoring phone lines, surveillance, assassination. All
the things required in terrorist activities. We ended up
training terrorists, the different terrorist factions, the IRA,
the PLO the Red Brigade, folks like that.
WALKER: Why would Green Berets like Thompson go to work
for Wilson? Wilson was a veteran of CIA cover operations.
Although he officially left the agency in 1971, he maintained
close ties with senior members of the agency's covert operations
division.
The military men who claimed they were recruited by
Wilson to train terrorists in Libya said they believed Wilson
represented the CIA.
MAN: Someone extremely high up in the agency
backstopped this operation for Mr. Wilson. It had to be. I
don't know. I could be wrong, but that's the only way I can
figure out that I was allowed to do what I done without being
stopped.
WALKER: Eugene Tefoya (?) is another ex-Green Beret who
worked for Wilson in Libya.
EUGENE TEFOYA: I am a trained soldier. I don't ask
questions of why the United States does that. I don't ask
questions of why I was recruited. I believed then and I believe
now that it was a special area, CIA-approved.
WALKER: But former CIA official George Carver denied it
on Nightline.
GEORGE CARVER: The Wilson case was reviewed by two
separate inspector general -- inspectors general and by the House
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in 1982. And they
found that Mr. Wilson was reprehensible, but the agency itself
was not at fault.
WALKER: If Wilson was not working for the CIA, his
free-lance operations were certainly lucrative. This was his
million-dollar estate in the exclusive Virginia countryside. And
he's rumored to still have more than ten million dollars hidden
in secret bank accounts.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/16: CIA-RDP91-00587R000201190010-0