JURY ACQUITS 2 IN B26 CASE, IGNORES CHARGES AGAINST CIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00001R000200120015-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 22, 1999
• Sequence Number: 15
• Publication Date: October 14, 1966
• Content Type: NSPR

OCT fA 1966
ApproL'VFq r e'Iease' 1999/09/07: C'IA-RDP7
CPYF~GHT
By ORR KELLY
Star Staff Writer
, 71-27-Two men
accused of illegally exporting
seven B26 bombers to Portugal
were found not guilty on all
counts by a federal court jury
here last might.
The foreman of the jury of 10
men and two women said a de?
fense contention that the en-
tire operation, had been con-
ducted for the Central Intelli-
gence Agency didn't enter seri-
ously into -their deliberations,
which went on for a little more
than five hours.
Squeals of delight came from
the section in the courtroom
;where friends and relatives of
John Richard Hawke, the ad-
mitted pilot of the seven planes,
:and Count Henri Marin de Mont-
marin, the alleged go-between
'in the deal, had waited for the
verdict. -
Immediately afterward De
Montmarin, who wears the
Legion of Honor for his services i
as a fighter pilot with the Free
French forces during World War
,II, slipped'off into an anteroom'
and placed a call to his wife
:and three grown children in
Paris, to tell them that he had
been freed.
Edward Brodsky of New York;
who represented De Montmarin,
and Edwin Marger of Miami
Beach, Hawke's attorney., had'
presented distinctively different
defenses.
Brodsky contended that his
client had no reason to be cofi- '
corned about the export licenses
which are required when arms
are shipped out of the country.
Marger attempted, on the
other hand, to show that Hawke,
a bearded ex-Royal Air Force;
pilot,' thought he was working';
for the CIA when he flew the'
seven planes across the Atlan
tid In the summer-of I965.
ApprovedFo'r Release
8 S
prize witness was
Lawrence R. Houston, general
counsel of the CIA, who, in
an unprecedented court ap-
earance, testified that his
gency's sole role in the opera-
ion was to learn about it from
ndisclosed sources and to pass
he information on to other gov-
rnrnent agencies..
Wallace Fox, foreman of the
ury, said after. the verdict that
he jury had been disappointed
hat H
t
'
t
ous
on
s
estimony had
een 'sharply limited by Federal
istrict Judge John 0
Hender-
.
on, but that the jurors had
and the two defendants not
uilty on the basis of other con-
iderations, quite apart from
larger's theory that the CIA
ad masterminded the entire
oration.'. ,
Another of 'the defendants, in
fighter pilot who allegedly ar-
ranged for the planes to be
smuggled out of -the country-!
has not as yet. been appre-,
hended.
Board left the United States.
two days before Hawke and 'de
Montmarin were arrested and.'
the government contends it has
not, despite continuing efforts,
been able to lay its hands on
him since.
U.S. Atty. 'John T. Curtin, the'
prosecutor, and the two defense-
attorneys put much of the blame.
for the entire affair'on Board,''
in their summation to the jury
yc.,_crday.
The government had promised"
in the United Nations that the,
defendants would be vigorously;
prosecuted, for violation of a1.
prohibition ? against providing;
arms to Portugal for use' in-its'
African posse
sions of A
l
'
i
ngo
a
s
yeas-old for;ber Australian and Mozambique. , t
1999/09107'.: CIA-RDP75-00001 R000200120.0'15-7.