'ROMANTIC' EX-MERCENARY SAYS HE WOULD RETURN TO ANGOLA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000100070003-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 21, 2010
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: November 18, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/21 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000100070003-2
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THE WASHINGTON POST
18 NOVEMBER 1982
`omantic' Ex-Mercenary Says
He mould Return to Angola
By Jay Ross
v: ashington Post Foreign Service
PARIS, Nov. 17-Seven years in
rat-infested Angolan prisons for
being a mercenary have not changed
Gustavo Grillo's romantic-perhaps
scheming"-heart.
Just hours after he and two other
Americans were freed in Lusaka,
Zambia, in a complex swap involving
six nations and about 100 prisoners, i
Grillo, 33, said today that he could
under certain circumstances become
a mercenary again. He added that he
was also interested in going "back to
Angola as a businessman."
"I'm a very romantic adventurer,"
he said early this morning on a flight
to Paris en route home to New Jer-
sey . "I like to warm my hands in the
fire of life," he added when asked
about becoming a "dog of war" again.
Also on the flight were fellow mer-
cenary Gary Acker, 28, -of Sacra-
mento, Calif., and pilot Geoffrey
Tyler, 33, of Seabrook, Md.
According to Grillo, Tyler is also
an "unserious guy," which helped
him to survive his 21 months in pris-
on after crash-landing a plane he
was flying over southern Angola.
Acker, who was captured with
Grillo in February 1976 while fight-
ing with a CIA-backed faction de-
feated in Angola's civil war, "is very
serious, too serious. He's very bitter,"
Grillo said.
Conversations on the plane with
the two other American prisoners
released in the deal bore out Grillo's
appraisal.
Although all three men appear to
have come out of the ordeal in rea-
sonably good health. Acker seems to
have been scarred the most. With his
all-American looks, it is hard to
think of the 28-year-old Vietnam
veteran from Sacramento, Calif., as a
mercenary. Acker declined to talk
about nis imprisonment and wow,
only reiterate the others' hope that
seven British mercenaries still held
under long prison terms would also
be released soon.
Unlike Grillo and Tyler, he re-
fused to take any clothes from his
captors when he was released early
Tuesday morning into the custody of
the International Committee for the
Red Cross.,?
He was dressed 'in a combination
of -clothes from his British. cellmate
John Lawlor and leis former cell-
mate, South African soldier, Johan
Van der Mescht, who was traded for
a Soviet spy in May.
Tyler said the Angolan prison
guards forced them to strip and
stack all their possessions in small
piles before their release.
"They took small things, including
Gary's personal letters. He raised
hell and they tossed them into tliie
plane at the last minute" before they
departed, Tyler said.
Acker was only 21 when he an-
swered an ad in Soldier of Fortune
magazine to become a mercenary for
the National Front for the Libera-
tion of Angola. It was disclosed in
congressional hearings that the
Front received the bulk of $31 mil-
lion spent by the CIA in .1975 and
1976 in unsuccessful attempts to
prevent the Marxist Popular Move-
ment for the Liberation of Angola
from gaining power.
Grillo was sentenced to. 30 years
in prison and Acker to 16 years in a
trial held by Angola in June 1976. A
third American, Daniel Gearhart, of
Kensington, Md. was executed along
with three British mercenaries.
Grillo refused to talk about his
severe criticism of the United States
during the trial where he called U.S.
society "a monster," a society of
power seekers, status seekers, waste
makers where the weak get weaker
STAT
At the time, reporters at the trial
interpreted the remarks as an at-
tempt to avoid execution since there
were allegations that he had killed
some Angolan soldiers. Gearhart ap-
parently never fired a shot during
the four days the three men were in
Angola before being captured.
Although Grillo talked some
about his future plan, he was ret-
icent to speak much about his im-
prisonment.
There's no way I can pot. seven years in a few?words,".he said.
"I was never mistreated. They ;
gave me the best- they had. They
didn't give it to me because they
didn't have it."
Heshad an operation on his left-.
leg for a bullet wound suffered when
he was captured but will need anoth-
er one in the United States to try to
correct his slight limp. He walks
with a cane. .
He also declined to compare his
imprisonment in Angola with 18
months he served in the United
States for armed robbery.
"I don't want to get into some-
thing deep. I don't like to talk about
those things," he said.
He also acknowledged another
reason for his reticence to give de-
tails of his experience. -
"I don't want to be rude.... [but]
I want to save myself. Maybe I can
sell my story."
"I have plans for the future to
make money in Angola," he added as
the airliner neared Paris. "Why not.
I'm going to throw seven years
away?" He is aiming for the import-
export trade, he said.
"At times, prison is the best place -
to be to learn things" about a coun-
try, he said. "Where would you send
people [to learn]? It's not going to be
in the street?' -
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/21 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000100070003-2