TERPIL-KOROLA -- LUTZ KAISER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP09S00048R000100020097-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 16, 2011
• Sequence Number: 97
• Publication Date: November 10, 1981
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Approved For Release 2011/08/17: CIA-RDP09S00048R000100020097-5
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,Terpil-Korkola --, Lutz Kaiser.
DAN RATHER: Two Americans who jumped bail in the United
States and were convicted in absentia for illegal arms deals have
vanished from their exile haven in.Beirut, and the possibility of
foul play has been raised.
John Sheahan reports.
JOHN SHEAHAN: Frank Terpil and Gary Korkola are fugitives.
Terpil is .a former CIA.agent wanted by federal authorities on charges
on selling huge quantities of explosives to Libya and contracting to
provide American Green Berets to train terrorists for Libyan leader
MuammarQaddafI. Still on the lamb, the two.were attempting.to open
a restaurant in Beirut and were beginning to talk about themselves.
They were.. i.nter'v i ewed by Mike Wallace for "60 Minutes."
MIKE WALLACE: Why is it, we asked Korkola, that U. S.
authorities; are so.intent on getting hold of Frank Terpil.
GARY KORKOLA: Well, there's two sides of it. One, they
want Frank back, and.I think equally hard there's another group that
doesn*t want him back. They want him out of the way.
'SHEAHAN: Last weekend7Terpil and Korkola suddenly vanished.
The.last person known to have seen theme in Beirut .1s Frank Ter pilts
wife of 'one year, Ruth.
RUTH TERPIL: Three men came to the restaurant and they
wanted to.talk to him. And that was the last time I saw him.
SHEAHAN: He just went with the three men?
MRS. TERPI L: Yes.
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SHEAHAN:. Frank Terpil.and Gary Korkola made a. profession
of being mysterious. Now just when they thought they had found
refuge, there is a new mystery: their disappearance.
John Sheahan, CBS News, Beirut..
RATHER: Informed sources told CBS News this evening
that Terpil and Korkola were abducted in Beirut by three Syrians,
one of whom is identified as a freelance intelligence agent.
Terpil's alleged involvement in the illegal explosives
sa.les to Libya .was in partnership with Edwin Wilson, also a former
CI-A--employee. . The two offered Libya's radical regime a wide range
of -services and materiel, which, as David Andelman tells us In
this .special ..report, . i nc-l uded -some very -soph i st i-cated weaponry,.
DAVID ANDELMAN: This is OTRAG, Orbital Transport and
Rocket Corporation, a West German company formed originally to
produce low cost weather and research rockets for the Third- World.
its-.founder,was this man,. Lutz Kaiser, a.German rocket genius who,
a decade ago, hit on the Idea of :a simple low-cost method of launch-
.1ng:.a-muItistage .rocket capable--of ranges of 2,000 miles or more,
or-boosting ten ton payloads into earth orbit.
Three years ago, Lutz Kaiser made a pact with. this man,
Co-lon-el;-Muammar. Qadd.afi of Libya. It was to-:be a mutual Iy b-en efi
cial arrangement. Kaiser needed-a rocket range to test his missiles;
Qaddafi had -a vast desert. There happened,'to be just the perfect
.oasis .500 miles south of Tr i po l i , 230-miles west 'of the Egyptian
frontier, a test range stretching . south and east. Kaiser and OTRAG
wou ld .try..,to .g i.ve Qaddaf is the--one ..thing aI 1 -hi.s oil bill ions had
not.iyet 'been --abl-e to bu.y, a -rocket with a range that could blanket
th
-
e
I1ideast .- Israel, Saudi :Arabia and southern Europe.
e r.ee.roc-
:kets -fr=om -a vast-`40,000-,square -mile faci I ity -in Zaire, two full
successes, one failure, 'a mid-flight explosion. -But finally, com-
bined:-pressure from the U. S., France-and the . So.v iet Union, all of
whom fear.ed...OTRAG and Kaiser were aiming to develop -weapons, not
weather rockets, forced.-Zaire's President Mobutu-Sese-Seko. to expel
Kaiser-and 'OTRAG. . Out -~of operation,--deeply in debt, Libya. and
..Kaiser's : move to Libya --wa was the last stop i n -a - str i ng of
..near=-m i?.sses and near f a i l u r e s . He'd a I ready I aunch d th
...,,DR. HARRY RUPPE: I should think that- the biggest drawback
of the OTRAG vehicle is the lack of guidance at this time. Now, one
.can.add a guidance system to-the vehicle, and allegedly--this has been
done or is In-the process of being done. I would think one needs
But the OTRAG rocket,
as a weapon, had one..major problem-
had-not---been able to_correct. It had. no. and
thoroughly -rel fable guidance system.
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both an.ascent guidance and a terminal guidance system. That's
fairly complex stuff, but it can be done.
ANDELMAN: Since such guidance systems are so critical
to a n y based. weapons system, the -governments" where they -
are produced "keep them under very close wraps_ indeed. But Qaddafi
had someone working for him. who had obtained the sophisticated
devices from inside the American military establishment. CBS News
has learned that lastNovember,and December, Lutz. Kaiser met. on.
several occasions with this man, Edwin Wilson, a former American
CIA agent now in Qaddafi's employ, who had arranged for everything
from sophisticated explosive'devices to the use of American Green
Beret troops in QaddafI's military.
At the meetings at the Beach Hotel in Tripoli, Kaiser is
reported to have described to Wilson precisely what he needed to
turn his OTRAG weather rockets into functioning intermediate range
.ballistic missiles.
Whether Wilson or Kaiser have been successful in ob-
taining a precision guidance system is not yet known, although it
is understood that Wilson' did make some approaches to TRW Space
Systems Division and the LTV Corporation, both of which manufacture
precision guidance ,systems. What is known .is that two months ago
OTRAG Germany and OTRAG Libya formally parted company, the German
stockholders forcing Kaiser to sell out his shares and refrain
from using the, OTRAG name.
.But Middle Eastern Intelligence sources and friends of
Kaiser report that the German scientist has not given up.. Now that
whatever restraints the German shareholders provided have been re-
moved, Kaiser, installed with his French wife in.a bungalow. adjacent.
to,the.launch site in Libya, is reportedly working frantically for
Qaddafi.himself. The goal: yet another rocket launch scheduled
for late November or December. A success will mean Qaddafi is well
on his.way to afull-scale IRBM weapon. A failure could mean big
trouble for Kaiser, who's already spent tens of millions of Qaddaf its.
0.11 dollars.
The.OTRAG here in.Germany claims that the Libyan OTRAG
is an outlaw.` Yet that company rema-ins one mechanism to.assure
Qaddafi of a stream of high tech weaponry.
In our, next report, we'll take a look at a German . corpora
tion largely controlled by Qad.dafi that's supplying sophisticated
military-communications equipment to NATO forces in-Europe.
David .Andelman.,` CBS News, Munich.
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