WHO'S FUNDING THE 'CONTRAS'?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000201090033-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 25, 2010
• Sequence Number: 33
• Publication Date: February 9, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/25: CIA-RDP90-00806R000201090033-3
ON PAGE r-_3
THE NATION
9 February 1985
BEAT THE DEVIL.
Who's Funding the 'Contras'?
The Reagan Administration is moving into higher gear in
its determination to overthrow the government of Nic-
aragua, and we may consequently expect a tidal wave o`
leaks about Nicaragua's arms buildup and planned sul^vcr-
sion of its neighbors. The pattern was set with the story,
planted on the night of Reagan's re-election, about the sup-
posed arrival of MIGs in Nicaragua. Now the Pentagon is
about to release to Congress-with much fanfare, no doubt.-
a twenty-three-page report-on the Nicaraguan peril, tenta-
tively titled "The Soviet-Cuban Connection."
This is all part of the barrage to persuade Congress to
resume aid to the contras. The money keeping them going in
the interim is chastely referred to. in most of the press as
"private funding," although the fencing of aid through
such U.S. -clients as Honduras, El Salvador and Israel has
been noted. The phrase "private funding" has a cozy ring to
it, as though it were charity, like a contribution to the
Boston Philharmonic, rather than support for 10,000 to
15,000-murderers.
On January 21, Alfonso Chardy of The Miami Herald
described in detail how some of this funding is organized. A
network of millionaires, retired officers and interested
emigres give the contras as much as Si million a month. A
central figure in the network is Gen. John Singlaub, retired,
head of U.S. forces in Korea until-relieved of his command
by President Carter for publicly criticizing U.S. policy. He is
now president of the-World Anti-Communist League, an
organization of ultrarightists and outright fascists intimately
involved with.death squads in Central and Latin America.
eluding such anti-Sandinista point
ranking officials -at the Pentagon-in-
Singlaub, who has sat on a Pentagon ad-
visory panel, told Chardy that high-
men as Fred Iklc, Under Secretary
of Defense for Policy, and 'Nestor -
including the shipment of materiel to Central
are helping coordinate ."relief" efforts,
Sanchez, Deputy Assistant Secretary of
Defense for Inter-American Affairs-
America' on U.S. Navy and Air Force craft. .
Singlaub also told Chardy that he and other former
. military and intelligence officers collect about 5500,000 a
month through an organization -.tamed U.S. Councl. for
World Freedom.
This is by no means the extent of-Singlaub's sinister activ-
ities. He is a founder of the Institute for Regional and Inter-
national Studies in Boulder, Colorado, which has announced
it will train contras if Congress does not restore aid. Sing-
laub is, by the way, an ornament at meetings organized by
Soldier of Fortune, the magazine for literate mercenaries.
He belongs to the Louisiana-based Council on National
Policy, which also raises money for the contras. It is a gold-
plated leviathan of the ultraright, including among its-rnem-
bers Joseph Coors, the Hunt brothers, Pat Boone, Jerry
Falwell, Pat Robertson of Christian Broadcasting Network
and Senators Jesse Helms and John East of North Carolina.
Tht:s many of the prime funders of Reagan's re-election
campaign have, without missing a beat, shifted their re-
sources to the Committee to Install Arturo in ' Managua.
This, of course, is a violation of the Neutrality Act, which
forbids private sedition of a government with which the
United States has diplomatic relations. And since we might
assume they are deducting their donations to the contras as
charitable contributions, we might conclude that the tax-
payers are funding the contras after all, the express will of
Congress notwithstanding.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/25: CIA-RDP90-00806R000201090033-3