BUSH LINK TO CONTRAS QUESTIONED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000605540001-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 24, 2010
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: December 21, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/24: CIA-RDP90-00552R000605540001-2
Bush link
to contras
questioned
Office had contact
with arms runner
By Matthew Purdy
and Steve Stecklow
Inquirer Stan Writers
WASHINGTON - When the unoffi-
cial supply network ferrying arms
and supplies from a military base in
Ilopango, El Salvador. to the Nicara-
guan contras was plagued with prob-
lems last summer, one of the leaders
of the operation turned to Vice Presi.
dent Bush's office for consultation.
Throughout July, according to
crew members on the operation. fuel
had been difficult to obtain, delaying
the supply flights across the border
into Nicaragua. Often, vehicles
meant to ferry crew members and
supplies from San Salvador to the
airstrip were in disrepair or the driv.
ers could not be found.
When flights finally did take off, it
was not unusual for the pilots to
discover that there were no contras
to meet them at the assigned supply
drop points in Nicaragua.
"It was just a hassle all the way
through," said one former crew
ember. "There were all these little
tholes and stumbling blocks."
So on Aug. 8, Felix Rodri uez vis-
ted Donald P. Gregg Bus hs assist:
nt for national security affairs, and
eggs deputy, , rm_y Col. mue
watsonTCe told t em thAt the supply
network might not survive until the
%-17% coulu come in to a e over tFee-
operation, according to documents
released last week by Bush's office.
That meeting occurred two months
before President Reagan signed the
legislation authorizing 5100 million
in U.S. military and nonmilitary aid
to the contras.
Although in June 1984 Congress
made government involvement in
supplying the contras illegal, con-
tacts between Rodriguez and Gregg
were not unusual. In fact, over the
last three years, there were 16 meet-
ings or telephone conversations be-
tween Rodriguez and Bush or mem-
bers of his staff, primarily Gregg,
according to the documents.
Officials throughout the adminis
PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
21 December 1986
tration have denied any involvement
in the contra supply network, but the
new revelations have heightened
questions about the knowledge of the
operation in Bush's office and under.
scored inconsistencies in previous
statements from vice presidential
aides.
The contacts between Rodriguez
and the vice president's office were
extensive, according to the chronol
gy o calls and meetings. Rodrguez,
a ,Cuban-American and former CIA
agent who uses the name Max Go-
mez, attended two meetings with
uS himself - in January 1985 and
May 1986 - and a ChriqtmA.-z party in
Gre 's office.
In addition. there were numerous
telephone calls and meetings with
Gregg and other officials. Moreover,
Gregg helped Rodriguez get a job at
the (lopango base in El Salvador.
However, Bush's office maintains
that the August meeting was the first
time any of the vice presidential
aides were aware that Rodriguez was
involved in the effort to supply the
contras.
Despite the fact that U.S. involve-
ment in supplying the contras would
not be legal again until October_
went, the National Security Council
and e to relay Rodriguez's re-
port on the desperate s ape of the
contra supply operation, according
to'bush'ss office.-
Marlin Fitzwater, Bush's spokes.
man, said he could not explain why
these discussions were conducted in
August, except for the fact that it was
"close" to the time that the adminis.
tration had hoped U.S. involvement
in supplying the contras could re-
sume.
The first evidence of any possible
link between the contra supply net.
work and Bush's office came in Octo-
ber from Eugene Hasenfus, a crew.
t ian for the supply network who was
shot down over Nicaragua.
Hasenfus, who was pardoned and
freed last week after serving one
month of a 30-year sentence, said Oct.
17, in a CBS interview after his cap-
ture, that Rodriguez or Bush knew
how the supply operation worked.
At the time, Bush's spokesman,
Fitzwater, said that "Gregg has said
he had no knowledge of anything
Involving contras. Neither the vice
president nor anyone on his staff is
directly or indirectly coordinating
an operation in Central America."
But last week, with bits and pieces
of contradictory information slip-
ping out, Bush's office laid out a
chronology that confirms a very dif-
ferent version of what happened
than previously had been said.
The new version is that Gregg
helped Rodriguez get his job as a
FILE ONLY'
director of the contra supply opera.
tion at (lopango and that Gregg was
aware of Rodriguez's involvement in
the network more. than two months
before Bush's office acknowledged
knowing of the connection. It also
says the U.S. government found out
that Hasenfus' plane was shot down
through a telephone call Rodriguez
made to Gregg.
Fitzwater maintains that Bush's of-
fice had no involvement in the sup-
ply network and that it thought Ro-
driguez was working with the
Salvadoran military to suppress a
Marxist insurgency in El Salvador.
"Our purpose from the beginning
has been to end speculation about
the relationship between Felix Ro-
driguez and the office of the vice
president," Fitzwater said in a state-
ment accompanying the chronology.
According to the chronology, Ro-
driguez began his work in El Salva-
dor in February 1985. several months
after Congress cut off military aid to
the contras.
Gregg helped Rodriguez get the job
working against the Salvadoran in-
surgency, Bush's spokesman has ac-
knowledged, because the two had
done similar work in Vietnam in
efforts to eliminate the Vietcong
guerrilla units operating in the prov-
inces around Saigon in 1970.
Rodriguez and Gre also were in-
volved In t e s By o igs opera-
tion in 1961, according to a former
CIA agent who participated But by
the time Rodriguez came to Gregg
loo _Fn to he[ work against the left-
ist insur ency in va or ee a
leis the ' .actor in? to informa-
tion from Bush's office.
Legg spent 31 years working for
the CL-1. until he retired in 19.92 to
join Bush's staff as assistant for na-
tional security. His last lob with the
CIA was as director of intelligence
programs for__the National Security
Council.
Gregg did not return telephone
calls last wweekk. re 's involvement
in the a o TT- s o ration cou d
not be in epen ent y con irme
. ;
said she knew nothing of Gregg's CIA
career.
Bsish met Gregg in the CIA while
Bush was serving as director of cen-
tre trite igence ur g e a ar
a IN I
In January 1985, one month before
Rodriguez moved to El Salvador,
Gregg introduced him to Bush, ac-
cording to the chronology. By, that
time, Bush was well acquainted with
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the situation in Central America. has been detailed by numerous for.
As chairman of the White House's mer crew members involved in the
National Security Planning Group, operation.
he had received a National Security' They say ctodri
Directive on Central America a year liaison between the zoser ati as the
earlier warning that the govern- the Salvadoran Aeration and
ments of Costa Rica and Honduras Military.
were being threatened by rant of the
supplies sent to the contras, includ-
renng threatened the con. ing weapons passed throw llo~
and the lack of real democratizatiion issued identiifi ation cards gh the er-
Mercenaries were
in Nicaragua,- according to govern- witted them on the that per.
ment documents concerning that re-
base.
port. Bush and his aides have
The chronolo want in their denial that they knew
of work Rodriguez has
makes clear thaythemvicce pre ident been dot in in Central America.
-approved of getting Rodriguez hired But notgever o menca.
by the Salvadoran military, which "There w y ne ie convinced.
(,Hired States publicly supports 12
the United States pports (Bush's) staff," meetings with
the Bush has subse- a contra researcher fore the Interrna.
quently called Rodriguez a national tional Center for
hero for his work in El Salvador. icy, based in Washington, D C. nI f nd
Since the downing of Hasenfus' it ridiculous that
plane in October, Rodriguez's work cussed an they never
at the Ilo g ythin to dis-
pan obese in EI Salvador tra supply effort."
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/24: CIA-RDP90-00552R000605540001-2