THE CARLOS FILE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100250012-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 22, 2011
• Sequence Number: 12
• Publication Date: October 5, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/22 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000100250012-4
3_.
AR rUCLE
ON PAGE.Ll...-
The Carlos File
THE NATION
5 October 1985
MARTHA HONEY AND TONY AVIRGAN
San Jose
For the past eighteen months we have been in-
vestigating the explosion of a bomb at a May 30,
1984, press conference called by Eden Pastors
Gomez, head of the Democratic Revolutionary
Alliance (ARDE), which operates along the border between
Costa Rica and Nicaragua. Three journalists and five con-
tras died in the blast, which took place in the Nicaraguan
border town of La Pence, and twenty-six others, including
Tony Avirgan, were injured. Propelled by our personal link
to the tragedy and by the growing realization that. no gov-
ernment or police agency was seriously investigating the
bombing, we sought to uncover the identity of the bomber-
a man who, journalists at the press conference say, posed as
a Danish photographer, planted a metal box containing the
bomb and vanished, uninjured, shortly after the explosion.
(lnr research was supported in part by the Newspaper
Guild and the Committee to Protect Journalists.
A year's worth of interviews with more than one hundred
people in Central and South America, the United States and
Europe failed to uncover the bomber's name or many of the
details of the plot. We did, however, gather proof that U.S.
officials and Costa Rican security officers planted stories in
the press, pinning the blame on the Sandinistas and the
Basque separatist organization, Euzkadi Ta Azkatssttna
(E.T.A.). A number of leads also pointed to Central In-
telligence Agency participation in the bombing. Several cur-
rent or former C.I.A. agents and informants-including, a
high-ranking Uruguayan police officer and a Cuban from
Miami-told us that the agency was behind it. And in the
course of our investigation, several names recurred: John
Hull, an American who owns and manages a ranch and
other extensive properties in northern Costa Rica; a high-
ranking official in the Costa Rican Ministry of Public
Security; and an anti-Castro Cuban named Felipe Vidal
Santiago. Many of our sources implicated these three men in
the bombing and said that they all have ties to the C.I.A. (In
an interview with us, Vidal denied he had a C.I.A. connec-
tion, and Hull told other reporters that he was not involved
with the agency.) Despite all our efforts, we were still no
closer to discovering the identity of the bomber.
Then, in March, a young Nicaraguan walked into a San
Jose bar and sat down next to a Costa Rican carpenter
named Carlos, the neighbor of a North American woman
who works in our office. The Nicaraguan, who called
himself David, told Carlos about the existence of a dirty
tricks squad working for the Nicaraguan Democratic Force
(F.D.N.), the leading contra group, and said he knew the
identity of the La Penca bomber. Through his neighbor,
Carlos contacted us, and in the months that followed we
supplied him with questions to ask David as well as with
approximately $50 for David's cab fare, to facilitate their
meetings. David's story raises numerous questions, and
some of it cannot be verified. But as Iong as there is a chance
that he was telling the truth, his story must be published so
that journalists and members of the U.S. Congress can in-
vestigate his charges.
David's story opens with a string of coincidences that
strain North American credulity but are plausible in the
overheated, factionalized atmosphere of Central America.
On Friday, March 29, 1985, Carlos was sipping a beer in the
Rendezvous Bar near the U.S. Embassy in downtown San
Jose. Three men came in; from their ascents Carlos judged
them to be Nicaraguans. Two of them then left, telling the
other to wait for them. This man, described as short, dark-
skinned and young, with a smooth round face and straight
black hair, immediately turned to Carlos. "You must help
me," he whispered. "Hide me. I want to get away. I don't
want to be involved anymore in their things. They are going
to dynamite the U.S. Embassy and many innocent people
will die. I want to get out."
For the next ten minutes, David poured out his story. He
claimed to be part of a right-wing group composed of anti-
Castro Cubans, Nicaraguan contras, Costa Ricans and
North Americans with ties to the C.I.A. They operated from
safe houses and contra camps in Honduras, Costa Rica,
Panama, Nicaragua and Miami, he said, moving "in and
out of Costa Rica like a dog from its own house." He said
the group was responsible for the La Penca bombing and was
planning a series of terrorist attacks which would be blamed on
the Sandinistas. These include bombing the U.S. Embassy
in Costa Rica and in Honduras, attacking the offices of
Costa Rican President Luis Alberto Monge Alvarez and
assassinating the U.S. Ambassador to Costa Rica, Lewis
Iambs; Miskito leader Brooklyn Rivera; and Urbina Lara,
a well-known contra.
David trembled as he spoke and seemed near tears. "I'm
an anti-Sandinista," he told Carlos. "But these people are
much more evil than the Sandinistas." He also claimed they
trafficked in cocaine, marijuana and arms. "They are mak-
ing money off the blood of my brothers and using our cause
to get rich." When Carlos asked why he didn't tell his story
to the Costa Rican authorities, David replied that a number
of government and security officials were collaborating with
his group. Out of desperation, he had chosen to confide in a
sympathetic-looking stranger. Carlos explained that he
could not hide David in his house. As the other two men
entered the bar, David urged the carpenter to keep in touch.
Carlos mulled over David's story for several weeks. On
three separate occasions he saw David's companions near
the U.S. Embassy. Once they got into a gray limousine
without license plates. But what overcame Carlos's reluc-
tance to get involved was the announcement, on April 25,
that Costa Rican Rural Guardsmen had arrested nine
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/22 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000100250012-4