WANTS MERCENARY TO TELL OF CIA ROLE IN ANGOLA WAR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000100070012-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 21, 2010
• Sequence Number: 12
• Publication Date: March 4, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/21 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
4 MARCH 1980
WV
ants Mar
By Martha Shirk
Post-Dispatch Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -A St. Louis lawyer
is urging the State Department to put
pressure on Angola to release an
American mercenary imprisoned there
so that he can return to the United
States to testify about the CIA's role in
the Angolan civil war.
W. William Wilson of St. Louis, the
leading force in a group called
Organization for Missing Americans
Abroad, said Monday that'every effort
should be made to bet Gary Acker of
Sacramento, Calif., released from
prison in Angola sa that he can tell
Congress how he was recruited" for
military service in Angola in 1976.
Acker was one of several Americans
in 1976 who were convicted by an
Angolan court for being mercenaries.
One of them, Daniel Gearhart, was
executed. Acker is serving a 16-year
sentence.
Wilson, who served on the
mercenaries' defense team, says they
were recruited by the CIA to join the
forces of the National Front for the
Liberation of Angola, a Western-backed
guerrilla army that battled the Soviet-
and Cuban-backed Popular Movement
for the Liberation of Angola for control
of Angola after' Portugal granted it
independence.. The Popular Movement
"The CIA lied to potential recruits,
including Gearhart and Acker, in order
to
to ensure their'recruitment for covert
operations in Angola," Wilson said at a
news conference in the Capitol. "It is
imperative now that Acker is freed and
brought back to appear and testify
before the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence to detail accounts of CIA
abuses before the proposed charter is
allowed to pass in its present form."
Neither the State Department nor
the CIA had any comment on Wilson's
charges. Wilson said the only evidence
on which he bases his charges of CIA 1
involvement is information from the
American recruiter, David Bufk-in.
Congress is considering a charter for if
the CIA that would give it a-blanket
exemption from complying with the
Freedom of Information Act. If
approved, Wilson said, that provision
"would foster future abuses by the
agency which could never then be
detected and corrected by Congress.
CIA exemption from the Freedom of
Information Act would release CIA
officials entirely from any
accountability."
The Organization for Missing
Americans Abroad was formed by
Wilson and Theodore Fronczak, a St.
Louis meat cutter, after Fronczak's
wife Sandy, a travel agent, disappeared
in Acapulco, Mexico, while on a trip
with other travel agents. Another local
travel agent, Gary Semmelroth of,
Belleville, also disappeared. Both are li
believed to have been slain.
STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/21: CIA-RDP90-00552R000100070012-2