BROTHER SAYS CAPTURED KIN ONCE WORKED ON CIA AIRLINE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000201080017-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 9, 2012
• Sequence Number: 17
• Publication Date: October 8, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/09 :CIA-RDP90-009658000201080017-6
AATICI~E
ON PApE~
~
Brother says
ca1ntured kin
once worked on CIA airline
By Alfonso Chardy
r~?.. WasAln~ten Burw~
WASHINGTON -The American
who was captured in Nicaragua
when his plane was shot down by
Sandinista troops on Sunday is a for?
mer Marine who once worked for a
CIA-operated airline in Vietnam, his
older brother said yesterday.
Eugene Hasenfus, 45, the only sur?
vivor among the four people on the
downed cargo plane, was not cur?
really working for the U.S. govern-
ment, according to his brother, Wil-
liam Hasenfus of Oshkosh, Wis.
U.S. officials also denied yesterday
that Eugene Hasenfus was connected
with the U.S. government at the time
of the crash.
William Hasenfus said his brother
currently worked for a private air
freight firm based in Florida and
had no current ties with the CIA.
The other three men on board the
plane were killed when the aircraft,
loaded with munitions, was shot
down Sunday over southern Nicara?
gua.
William Hasenfus said that he
thought his brother survived by
jumping to safety wearing the para-
chute he recently lent him.
Eugene Hasenfus, of Marinette,
Wis., began working for the Florida
air cargo firm last summer, after
working in construction, his brother
said yesterday.
During the height of the Vietnam
War, Hasenfus flew on Air America
aircraft in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia
and Thailand, and was responsible
for weighing and balancing equip~
went aboard the aircraft, according
to his brother.
At the time, Air America was oper?
ated by the CIA and involved in
clandestine air cargo operations in
Southeast Asia. In the 1970x, the CIA
divested itself from Air America, but
those who monitor American intelli?
Bence community affairs say the spy
agency and the company continue
informal contacts.
CIA spokeswoman Kathy Pherson
enied yesterday that Eugene Hasen-
us and the downed plane were con-
nected to the CIA, according to the
Associated Press. She also declined to
comment on whether Hasenfus had
worked for Air America.
The Sandinistas maintain that the
downed aircraft was a supply plane
for the U.S: backed Nicaraguan con-
tra rebels, originally organized by
the CIA in 1981. They also said Hasen-
fus identified himself as a US. mili-
tary adviser stationed in El Salvador.
The Sandinista reports shook
Washington because the CIA and all
other U.S. government agencies are
barred from aiding the contras with
military supplies, funds or advice.
That prohibition will be lifted once
Congress clears President Reagan's
new package of 5100 million in aid to
the contras.
A contra spokesman in Washing-
ton, Javier Arguello, said the downed
aircraft did not belong to the con?
tras.
Two administration officials famil-
iar with contra affairs, one of them
linked to the U.S. intelligence com?
munity, said the mission of the air?
craft in Nicaragua was purely pri?
vale and that the men aboard had no
immediate connection to the CIA or
the administration.
However, the two officials conced-
ed that the Americans "may have
been" volunteers once connected to
the CIA or the military services, part
of a network of private American
advisers to the contras that was or-
ganized in 1984 when Congress
banned the CIA from directly assist-
ing the contras for military acuvi?
ties.
ElUott Abrams, assistant secretary
of state for inter?Amencan affairs,
told reporters that private relief
flights had enabled the Nicaraguan
resistance to survive in the face of
the restrictions on U.S. government
assistance.
Since 1984, a number of anticom?
munist paramilitary organizations
such e, the Alabama-hexed Civilian
Material Assistance have been pro-
viding funds, clothing and advisers
to the contras. Some of the advisers
were drawn from the ranks of re-
tired CIA and Pentagon personnel.,
In Marinette, Theresa Hasenfus,
who said she was Eugene's stepmoth-
er, told the Associated Press that he
and his wife, Sally, had three chil-
dren and lived outside Marinette on
the shore of Lake Michigan's Green
f3ay.
Sally Hesenfus is a real estate agent
;n Marinette, a city of about 12,000 on
the Wisconsin border with Michi-
gan's Upper Peninsula, she added.
William described his brother as
about 6 feet tall with red hair and "a
good old American build on him." He
said Eugene was athletic in high
school and still "liked to have a beer
with the boys."
William said that he and Eugene
once ran a parachuting school and
both are ardent sky divers.
"[t's a little ironic," he said. "That
was my parachute on his back. He
just happened to esk for it when he
visited a few weeks ago and that's
what saved him."
The Associated Press contributed to
this article.
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/09 :CIA-RDP90-009658000201080017-6