ANOTHER CHAPTER IN WEIRD SAGA OF EX-CIA AGENTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100160047-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 10, 2012
• Sequence Number: 47
• Publication Date: September 29, 1981
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/10: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100160047-6
ARTICLE APPEARED
THE WASHINGTON POST
ON PAGE 29 September 1981
told ieaerai inveawgawva ,~ .,a.......
Another Chapter tially directed the Ugandan airliner
to Los Angeles. But the pilot re-
in \V ird Saga of ' fused, "stating there was cargo at
L7 Ontario to be picked up."
On landing,. the plane was direc-
.LE-CIA' Agen' s ted to a remote area of the field and
sealed off... Several hours later, U.S.
At the lowest point in U.S. rela- Customs agents boarded it and
a Ugandan air- found an Egyptian captain, a Ugan'
with Idi Amin
li
,
ons
liner made an unauthorized landing dan co-pilot, a Lebanese flight en-
at a California airport and was per gineer and several Ugandan flight
mitted to leave with what was ap attendants.
parently an illegal shipment of high An attorney for Jerome S. Brower,
explosives. Amin is the homicidal a well-known explosives dealer, ar-
maniac who ruled Uganda until his rived and said the cargo was waiting
overthrow two years ago. at the Aerojet Inc. hangar. Next
The incident was yet another came Terpil, who said he was "a rep-
chapter in the weird saga of Frank resentative of Ugandan Airlines" and
Terpil and Ed Wilson, the fugitive would handle everything.
ex-CIA agents whose sordid exploits One of the Customs agents, hav-
I have been reporting for the past. ing determined that the cargo was
year. The two renegades had made a electronic equipment, OK'd it for
lucrative career supplying explosives shipment.
and terrorist training to Amin and But the Customs agent returned
his Libyan buddy, Muammar Qad- the next day, Sept. 21, because "the
daft. situation at the airport bothered
The airport incident occurred on him," according to one of the secret
Sept. 20, 1977, according to secret reports. This time, he found a ship-
Justice Department reports exam- ment of explosives waiting to, be
ined by my associate Dale Van Atta. loaded.
The United States had not had an "The liquid explosive, with a flash
embassy in Kampala since 1973; just point of 110 degrees or 120 degrees,
seven months before the mysterious was sitting on the runway in cans,"
cargo pickup, President Carter had he told investigators. "As the day got
denounced Idi Amin as a ruler whose hotter, the cans began to burst and
actions "have disgusted the entire the liquid was seeping out onto the
civilized world." runway,and later onto the floor of
The assistant manager of the On- the aircraft."
tario (Calif.). International Airport The explosives had come from
Brower's ' company. The Customs
agent also spotted some 55-gallon
drums of an unknown substance
nearby, but was told they weren't
part of the shipment. He told inves-
tigators he didn't know if any of the
drums had been loaded earlier, but
another Customs agent said he had.,
seen some in the cargo hold-.
But when the agents checked with,
the State Department in, Washing-,1
ton, they were told there was. no, rea
son to prevent the export of the ex-,
plosives. The plane was approved for
departure, and flew ~ out, that day
after filing a flight plan to Canada. .
.
"All bills for food, fuel and airport
services were paid' in U.S. currency
out of a suitcase. held by the pilot,"
the reports said.
Brower pleaded guilty earlier this. year to. one count of illegally ship-
ping explosives to Libya in 1976`
through Terpil. The Aerojet Inc. fa-
cility chief at Ontario, Frank Doli-?
nski, told -investigators he had let
Brower,. who once worked for the'
company, ; use the hangar, and was
shocked when he learned it had been 1
used to load a Ugandan aircraft.,
Dolinski was reprimanded by Aero-!
Jet officials
' `i
.
One thing is not clear: high explo-
sives had been embargoed for 'ship- !
ment to Uganda. So why was a
Ugandan airplane allowed to pick up
explosives? One Customs agent at.
the airport said the load was not in-'
spected because he. "wouldn't know i
one explosive from another anyway." a
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/10: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100160047-6