CONTRA PROBE PUTS HEAT ON STATE OFFICIAL

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504480002-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 27, 2012
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: May 13, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504480002-2
nu 011E I CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
1
13 May 1987
Contra probe
puts heat on
State official
By George D. Moffatt III and Dennis Violman
Staff wnters of The Chnstian Science Montag
WmNngW
Elliott Abrams, the State Department's top
Latin America official, appears to be in deepening
trouble in cot ection with the Iran-contra
scandal.
Sources clone to the probe say the next few
weeks will be crucial for Mr. Abrams as congres-
skmai Investigators and the special prosecutor
examine akk ions that he vioIs*d Congress's
ban on milit*ry aid to Nicaragua's contra rebels.
Abran1a who is 15th in line W testify before the
Iran-contra investigating committees, adamantly
Elliott Abrams: Is
he on his way out?
denies any complicity in
t private efforts to cir-
cumvent the ban in 1985
and 1986.
But according to a US
government official,
both the special prosecu-
tor Lawrence Walsh and
congressional investiga-
tors "have so much stuff
on Abrams" that even if
he manages to avoid in-
dictment he will most
likely be "cut to pieces"
when he appears before
the congressional inves-
tigating committees.
Senate staff and in-
formed legal sources say
the special prosecutor's
office is considering indicting Abrams.
The US official says "whether or not he is
indicted, Elliott will be politically finished. The
State Department is in a tough position and the
bureaucracy will have to cough someone
up and give them to the lions in order to
protect itself. Elliott will be that
someone."
The official also stated that Abrams
will not have the protection of key former
allies on the political right, including for-
mer UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick
and Jose Sorzano, currently the Latin
America specialist on the National Secu-
rity Council, and their allies in Congress.
They cannot forgive Abrams for his
attempts to reform the contras and even
remove Adolfo Calera, head of the largest
contra army, from the leadership of the
Nicaraguan resistance movement starting
late last year, says this official.
Abt ardidn understand that these
people are on a holy crusade and Calero is
their sacred cow," says this official. "So
that having alienated both the right and
the left, Elliott will find very little back-
ing behind him at the moment of truth."
The allegations against Abrams fall
into two general categories.
First, that as chairman policy
interagency Reagan administration committee on Latin America, Abrams su-
pervised - or at least was aware of - the
contra resupply network now the object
of the Iran-contra investigation.
The committee, known as the Re-
stricted Interagency Group (RIG), was set
up in 1981 in part to oversee the contra
war against Nicaragua. The RIG includes
representatives from the Pentagon and
the CIA. One Abrams subordinate on the
RIG was the NSC's Oliver North.
Abrams's critics say it would have
been nearly impossible for the assistant
secretary to have worked in such close
proximity with Mr. North without knowl-
edge of North's activities.
"He's much too smart to have been
involved in [the FIG] and' not to have
asked the right questions, " says one con-
gressional opponent of contra aid.
"If there's any 'guilt' on Abrams's part,
it was probably in not asking the right
auestions," says a former administration
official, a strong supporter of contra aid.
"He nay just have derided to look the
other way" Abrams insisted before the
lower Commission investigating the Iran-
contra scandal that "We did not engage
in, nor did we really know anything about
this private network."
A State Department source dose to
Abrams says too much has been made of
the Abrams-North connection.
"What you've got here is a big supposi-
tion that Ollie North must have talked to
Abrams," says this official. "Who says?
Abrams had no knowledge of North's il-
legal activities. Not one word has come
out to indicate Ollie was closer to Elliott
than anyone else on the [RIGJ."
The second charge involves Abrams'
overseeing the activities of two US am-
bassadors who may have played a role in
efforts to abet the contra war.
News reports say US ambassador to El
Salvador Edwin Corr met repeatedly with
Felix iguez, a former CIA official
-who directed secret contra resupply
flights from El Salvador's Ilopango air
base. Ambassador Corr has indicated that
he was aware of the supply flights but
denies any role in "supervising" the
flights, which carried arms airdropped to
the contras inside Nicaragua.
Continued
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504480002-2
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504480002-2
ftrmcr US ambassador to Costa Rica denied direct knowledge of the supply Nouooufi redo
Leis T" told the New York 'Mmes network before the House Fbreign Affairs Aequaintences also describe the con-
that he was directed by the RIG to give Committee in October 1986, Abrams later troversiak assistant secretary as a lif
g logistical help to the contras and to revealed that "we had pretty good infor- political nonconformist.
lo In the 1 ek~rug
American Pilots airlifting weapons and mation" on the supply network. Harvard student, Abrams supported
supplies to the rebels from a secret air- Abrams later sidestepped a query from Hubert Humphrey, while others of his
strip near the Nicaraguan border. Re- the Senate Select Committee on Intelli- antiwar generation gravitated toward
sponding to what he says was a directive Bence about third-party funding. Later he Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy
from North, seconded by Abrams, 'Ihinbs apologized to the committee for not re- Later, when George McGovern picked
says he also helped build a southern - vealing that he had solicited $10 million up the anti-war standard, Abrams sup-
Costa Rican - front in the contra war in contra aid from the Sultan of Brunei, ported the conservative wing of the Dem-
"Elliott did not give Thmbs those conceding that his earlier explanation ocratic Party led b Washington
instructions," says the State Department had "left a y senator
misleading impression" The Henry M. Jackson
source close to Abram
"T'h
$10
h
s.
e w
ole story
million, which was deposited in a
as we know it now is one of individuals Swiss bank account by Oliver North, has
making certain representations of author- since disappeared.
ity that may not be true." "Most members of Congress would feel
'
M& W*dMW
Abrams himeif has denied all allega-
tions of wrongdoing in connection with
the Iran-contra affair, but Capitol Hill
sources say the credibility of the assistant
secretary has worn thin. After having
movement as is, especially in the CIA."
Sandinista official Arturo Cruz.
"Elliott is an intelligent man but he
never appreciated what he was dealing
with," says this official. "He never under-
stood that the people in the White House
and the [Central Intelligence] Agency and
others on the right are not mere politi-
cians but moral crusaders. He also under-
estimated the depth of the vested inter-
ests supporting Calero and the contra
tat
h it
s not every day you get $10 million
from the Sultan of Brunei," says a con-
gressional source. "Abrams has not gone
out of his way to keep Congress fully,
informed ... It raises serious questions."
The administration officcial close to the
contra issue traces the loss of support for
Abrams among conservatives to his ef-
forts to create a reformed, modernized
contra movement headed by former
"He was culturally isolated from much
of his generation," says one congressional
source who has dealt with Abrams fre-
quently. "In a way, his career at State is a
kind of reaction to that, it's as if he's
answering his own youth."
Abram capped
his from his Democratic ratic roots by evolution
ing on
with Democrats for Reagan in 1980. The
same year, he married the daughter of
writer and editor Midge Decter and step
daughter of Commentary editor Norman
Pbdhoretz, two of the intellectual godpar-
ents of the "neomnoervative" movement
that bolted from the Democratic party
after the McGovern nomination.
Abrams has held the post of assistant
secretary of state three times under Presi-
dent Reagan. In addition to the Latin
America bureau, he has headed the State
Department offices that deal with Inter-
national organizations and human rights.
As head of the human rights bureau,
Abrams received mixed reviews. Human
rights groups credited him with being a
forceful ad
f
vocate
or human rights re-
who used to be in daily contact forms in countries such as Chile and
with contra moderates, has withdrawn Paraguay
and the CIA is back in the saddle. But in Central America, where criti-
One moderate contra official says, "we cisrn of human rights practices risked
used to see Elliott every day. Now it's bringing down regimes friendly to the US,
strictly the CIA that handles our day-to- Abrams was more cautious. Human rights
day operations." groups say Abrams minimized extensive
The administration official adds that abuses committed by military regimes
"the State Department thinks that the like those in El Salvador and Guatemala,
whole contra issue is a can of worms and while reserving criticism for groups that
they'd rather see it explode in the CIA's brought the abuses to light.
face than in theirs." So far there have been no calls in Con-
Asked to describe Elliott Abrams, gress for Abrams's resignation. But some
friends and associates invariably use the sources privately say his days may be
same adjectives: "bright," "ambitious," numbered, especially if North implicates
"forceful," "ideologically committed." him in testimony.
Today, according to the official
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504480002-2