EDWIN WILSON HAS ACE IN THE HOLE: TESTIMONY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100150082-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 29, 2012
• Sequence Number: 82
• Publication Date: June 28, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT _
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/29: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100150082-8
A. TIT AFFEARED
ON PAGE
THE WASHINGTON POST
28 June 1982
Edwin Wilson
Has Ace in the
Hole: Testimony
Edwin P. Wilson, the renegade
CIA agent who was lured into a trap
by the Justice Department, has an
ace in the hole: his testimony. Con-
sider the embarrassment he could
cause by testifying about just two
episodes at a public trial:
? Wilson was on the CIA's payroll,
and doing the agency's bidding, all
the time he was employed by one of
the largest labor unions in the Unit-
ed States as its international repre-
sentative in Europe.
? He served as an advance man
for Hubert H. Humphrey in the
1964 campaign, thus playing an ac-
tive role in partisan politics, while
still working for the CIA. '
These confessions were made by
Wilson on tape before he left Libya
and was ensnared by the Justice De-
partment. I arranged for him to tape
more than three hours of candid,
wide-ranging reminiscences of his
days as an undercover agent for the
CIA and Navy intelligence. The
tapes were made in Tripoli by Rich-
ard Bast, a private detective who
specializes in intrigue and who
served as the intermediary.
Wilson offered to take a lie-detec-
tor test as evidence that he was tell-
ing the truth.?The test was being ar-
ranged by my associates Dale 'Van
Atta and Indy Badhwar when Wil-
son was lured from his Libyan sanc-
tuary, captured in the Dominican
Republic and hustled off to the
slammer in the United States.
For years the communist press
has accused practically every Amer-
ican working abroad of being a CIA
hireling. Most of the time the
charges have been pure borscht. But
in Wilson's case there was a CIA
connection. His account:
Wilson "was able to wangle a job
from the CIA," as he put it, after the
Korean War. His first assignment
was to provide security for the CIA's
super-secret U2 spy plane in Cali-
fornia. He accompanied the U2 to
England, Germany and Turkey,
where he served until the Soviets
shot down Francis Gary Powers and
the 1J2 project with him. Wilson
then was transferred to the CIA's in-
ternational organizations division.
"On this assignment, I was able to
find a job on my own, without any
help from the agency, with the Sea-
farers International Union in New
York," he recalled. The union's lead-
ership was never told he was with
the CIA, as far as Wilson knows.
"Our role was to use [the union] as
a vehicle to arrive overseas, where
you could be effective in work
against communists," he said.
As the union's international rep-
resentative in Europe, Wilson was
able to inform the CIA "about smug-
gling of arms and ammunition by
seamen into Cuba and into South
America." He could also stir trouble
for European unions that "were kind
of getting along with the commu-
nists," he said.
"We kind of,' helped: foment a
strike by the communists" he said,
"which kind of positioned them, got
them out front, and the governments
took certain :actions against them. It
was quite effective, l :thought, to
lessen the influence of the commu-
nist unions in Europe,'....
After two yeabiaffifInthis activity
things got hot for Wilson. His wife
and children were arrested by the
Belgian police:at one point The Sea-
farers, still:Ignorant of his CIA sta-
tus, brought him home and assigned
him to, AFL-CIO headquarters.
"George. Meikny, at the time wanted
someone to work for him in interna-
tional activities' in the Far East,"
Wilson said; "So I made a three- or
four-month tOr of the Far East"
His union 'ivork in Washington
opened the *ay for him to work
Humphrey'S Vibe-presidential cam-
paign. He ifiade (-contacts in Congress
and else*liere in Washington that
were to prove invaluable.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/29: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100150082-8