NICARAGUA: CIA ENLISTED TWO AS SPIES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000302420005-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 19, 2012
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: March 14, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

ST Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/10/22 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000302420005-9
ON PACE .1441? PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
14 March 1986
Nicaragua:
CIA enlisted
two as spies
By- Tim Golden
knight-Ridder News Service
MANAGUA, Nicaragua ? The head
ol ,Nicaragua's state security agency
ctrarged yesterday that the CIA re-
cruited two Nicaraguan Interior Min-
Miry officers to spy for the United
States as part of a growing U.S. infil-
tration.
During a news conference, state
security director Lenin Cerna Juarez
laid out a partial history of alleged
CIA contacts in Miami with one
young Nicaraguan officer, and his
subsequent spying.
' The accuracy of the information
derna presented was impossible to
confirm immediately. Reporters at
th,e news conference were not even
allowed to question the principal of-
ficer in the alleged plot. The other
officer was not present.
: Cerna contended that CIA agents
assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Ma-
nagua coordinated the operation and
named two U.S. diplomats as the offi-
cers'. contacts. The diplomats he
named are First Secretary Stephen
Mucchinson, 43, a senior political of-
ficer, and Third Secretary Bonnie
Sue Bennett, 26, -a junior consular
officer.
A U.S. Embassy spokesman in Ma-
nagua, John Roney, said after the
news conference-that "as a matter of
policy, we do not comment on intelli-
gence matters or alleged intelligence
activities."
Roney said he had no knowledge of
any moves by the Nicaraguan gov-
ernment to expel Murchinson or
Bennett. Asked whether there was
U.S. concern for the diplomats' secu-
rity, Roney said the embassy as-
sumed that "the Nicaraguan govern-
ment will maintain its responsibility
to protect diplomatic personnel."
During the news conference, the
principal Nicaraguan officer accused
of espionage, 2d Lt. Reynaldo Aguado
Mpt.ealegre, limped to a chair next
to- Cerna and told reporters that a
brother's phone call telling him that
his mother was dying of cancer lured
him to Miami in October.
:When he arrived in Miami, Aguado
said, he was approached by a CIA
agent who hinted that he would let
local- anti-Sandinista rebels loose on
his family if he declined the offer of
employment as a spy for U.S. govern-
ment. That employment, he said, in-
cluded deposits of $25,500 to start and
$5,500 a month in a Miami bank ac-
count.
Aguado and Cerna said that
Aguado returned to Managua and
began poking around, equipped with
a .$25,000 camera concealed as a
Cricket cigarette lighter, invisible-
ink carbon paper for sending secret
messages, radio code books and min-
iature instructions rolled up inside a
Bic pen.
Aguado was detected in January
and arrested last month, they said.
Cerna said the CIA also had re-
cruited Interior Ministry 2d Lt. Jose
cluardo Trejos Silva in November
1983 .and used him to spy with help
frdm his wife, Rosalina Soza. Cerna
said ,the couple was discovered in
inft1-1985 and detained Feb. 19.
The two were not presented to re-
porters yesterday, Cerna said, be-
cause the ministry was interested
only in giving an overview of the
alleged espionage. But he said the
couple would be made available to
reporters later.
Elsewhere in the region, U.S. spe-
cial envoy Philip C. Habib arrived
yesterday in Tegucigalpa, the capital
of Honduras, for talks with that
country's officials.
Habib repeated the Reagan admin-
itttation's offer to resume direct
talks with Nicaragua if the Sandinis-
ta government would agree to talk
with the U.S.-backed contras. The
Nicaraguan government has repeat-
edly rejected that proposal.
t neclassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/10/22 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000302420005-9