CONTRA LEADER SAYS NORTH ARRANGED STIPEND FOR HIM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000605070011-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 4, 2012
• Sequence Number: 11
• Publication Date: February 21, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STET
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/04 :CIA-RDP90-009658000605070011-5
I
6JASHINGT0,1 POST
21 February 1987
Contra Leader Says North
Arran ed Sti nd for Him
g ~
Cruz Discloses He Received X7,000 a Month
,,~~`By Joe P-.i'c'tiirall~'
Wig er
Arturo the Nicaraguan reb-
el ea er considered crucial to con-
tinued congressional support for the
contra movement, yesterday dis-
closed that fired Nationai Security
Council aide Oliver L. North ar-
ranged for him to receive a $7,000
monthly stipend last year.
[n an interview, Cruz said he
went to Marine Lt. Col. North-
who was the Reagan administra-
tion's point man in finding ways to
assist the contras during atwo-year
congressional ban on military aid-
and that North told him that he
would arrange for Cruz to receive
money from a ?pri~ icz foreign
source."
Cruz said he did not know wheth-
er the money, which a knowledge-
able source said was wired to a per-
sonal bank account in Costa Rica,
came from Swiss bank accounts tied
to the secret Iranian arms sales.
North and several others allegedly
used these accounts to divert mon-
ey to aid the contras.
When Cruz was interviewed re-
cently by FBI agents working with
independent counsel Lawrence E.
Walsh, who is investigating possible
criminal wrongdoing in the Iran-
contra affair, he informed them of
the payments and his conversations
with North. The payments began in
January 1986 and ended sometime
last fall, about the same time that it
became known publicly that the
Reagan administration was seging
arms to Iran.
Cruz said he agreed to give the
Federal Bureau of Investigation ac-
cess to his three bank accounts. FBI
and congressional investigators are
trying to trace the proceeds of the
arms sales and whether they were
used to benefit the contras.
-A former banker in Washington
and a former ambassador for the
Sandinista government, Cruz be-
came disillusioned and joined the
contras in mid-1985. His involve-
ment helped secure support in some
congressional quarters at a time
when the Reagan administration
was seeking approval for the re-
sumption of military aid.
House Speaker Jim Wright (D-
Tex.) said yesterday that the pay-
ments raise new questions about
North's role: '"fhe Congress will
want to know what other things
Col.. North may have done with
funds available to him," he said.
Wright, who stated that he was
"saddened" by the disclosure, said,
"I regret that it may tend to com-
promise the public credibility of Mr.
.Cruz, whom I've always regarded as
a man of considerable personal in-
tegrity."
Cruz defended the payments,
saying that he needed financial as-
sistance to support his family. "I had
to do it because I needed to have
my mind as free as possible to be
able to be enmeshed in the strug-
gle. Nobody iq going to influence
my fundamental ideas about my
country," he said.
Cruz's disclosure comes at a time
when he and his chief ally in the,
contra leadership, Alfonso Robelo,
are locked in a power struggle with
the more conservative Adolfo
Calero, the head of the main rebel
military force.
Sources have said the rift has led'
to infighting between the State Ik-
pattment-where Assistant Sec-
retary Elliott Abrams has led the
fight for a broad alliance that in-
cludes Cruz and Robelo-and the
Central Intelligence~A enc~~h
in the past has si ed cTwith~alero.
Cruz said that he disclosed the
payments to Calero and other top
contra leaders at a meeting last
May, when he was leading a fight
for access to financial records con-
trolled by Calero.
Some Cruz supporters, who
asked not to be identified, sug-
gested yesterday that information
about Cruz's financial tie to North
was leaked to blunt Cruz's efforts to
reform the main rebel organization,
the United Nicaraguan Opposition.
The first report on the payments to
Cruz appeared yesterday in the Los
Angeles Times.
The Cruz source said .that
North's chief contact with the con
tras was Calero, who had control o~
virtually all contra finances. Calero
has denied knowing of any diversiow
from the Iran deals. ~
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/04 :CIA-RDP90-009658000605070011-5