CONTRA SUPPLY MISSION CASUAL

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000605210014-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 2, 2012
• Sequence Number: 14
• Publication Date: October 12, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/02 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000605210014-6
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WASHINGTON POST
12 October 1986
Contra Supply Mission Casual
:tfnerican Held in Managua Does Not Resemble Professional Agent
CBy JuliaPreston
Washington Post Foreign Service
MANAGUA, Nicaragua, Oct.
11-The Reagan administration,
encouraging private U.S. citizens to
support the guerrilla war against
the leftist Sandinista government
during the past two years, was run-
ning the risk that a low-level con-
tract worker would fall into Mana-
gua's hands.
What emerged this week from
the brief public appearances of
American prisoner Eugene Hasen-
fus was how few precautions were
taken to avoid that
danger during the se-
cret resupply, missions
in which he participated.
Reporters have not yet been al-
lowed to question Hasenfus, nor are
the full details of his treatment in
captivity known. But from his state-
ments since his capture Monday by
Sandinista infantrymen in swelter-
ing southern Nicaraguan jungles,
Hasenfus did not seem to be the
professional undercover operative
popularly portrayed as willing to
sacrifice everything fora political
cause.
Two Americans, pilot William J.
Cooper and copilot Wallace Blaine
Sawyer, and an unidentified Latin
American were killed when their
C123K cargo plane was shot down
Sunday. Hasenfus, 45, of Marinette,
Wis., the lone survivor, will face
t>in Nicaragua.
In statements at a press confer-
ence I burs la sen us named
two alleged CIA employes w o e
said ran a rebel resupply network
based in El Salvador nearly i entical
to IA-financed cargo rops y it
America in Southeast Asia in 4 he
late 1960s. The Reagan adminis-
in
tration has denie any direct
volvement, but the original source
of funds for the operation remains
unc ear
The ill-fated flight, despite hav-
ing to pass over eager Sandinista
troops armed with Soviet Bloc heat-
seeking rockets at the border with
Costa Rica, apparently was con-
ducted almost casually.
Hasenfus was the only crewman
to wear a parachute in flight, and he
reportedly told Sandinista interro-
gators that the other two Ameri-
cans teased him about his caution.
Numerous documents, including
flight logs, identification cards,
business cards and personal papers,
were on board.
Nicaraguan Army officers said
troops found Hasenfus less than one
day after the crash, waiting in a ham-
mock he had fashioned from his para-
chute in a jungle hut less than three
miles from the plane's wreckage.
American journalists who spoke
briefly with the broad-shouldered,
ruddy-faced American prisoner in
southern Nicaragua Tuesday said
he did not seem reluctant to talk
about his situation. But he speaks
no Spanish, and seemed to know
little of the country where he
"dropped from the sky," as he put it.
Instead of throwing him imme-
diately behind bars, Sandinista of-
ficials said they took a kid-glove
approach with Hasenfus, taking him
to a private dinner Tuesday night in
Managua. Reportedly his Sandinista
captors stressed the Reagan admin-
istration's disavowal of the air-drop
operation to heighten his sense of
being abandoned.
President Daniel Ortega, in his
first comments about the case,
asked today: "If the prisoner and
the men who died are heroes to the
United States, why doesn't the U.S.
government answer for them?"
On Wednesday Hasenfus passed
into custody of Commander Lenin
Cerna, chief of the Sandinista state
security police, reputed to be a bru-
tal interrogator.
So far Hasenfus' comments appar-
ently have given the government
grounds to prosecute him for nation-
al security violations, but also pos-
sibly reason to release him in some
kind of amnesty after he has served
some time in jail.
Nicaraguan officials said they will
go forward with the trial mainly to
boost the government's popularity at
home. Ortega said today Hasenfus
will "probably" be judged in a special
court, called the Popular Anti-Somo-
cista Tribunal, beginning as early as
next week. He faces a maximum 30-
year term and will probably be con-
victed, Ortega said.
The incident handed a propagan-
da victory to the leftist Sandinista
government as its fortunes were
sagging at home because of a col-
lapsing economy. Some Ni-
caraguans, though deeply frustra-
ted with the government, were
alarmed by such plain proof that
U.S. citizens have joined the war
against Nicaragua directly.
The government also has used
the incident to bolster the public
image of its military preparedness.
Three young soldiers who downed
the plane and caught Hasenfus re-
ceived medals from Defense Min-
ister Humberto Ortega.
"I couldn't believe it. The plane
just kept falling," said lose Fernan-
do Canales, 19, the somewhat
green soldier who fired the ground-
to-air missile that struck the air-
craft. "I thought I was dreaming."
The crash appeared to verify many
of Managua's often shrill charges
about the involvement of El Salvador,
Honduras and, to a lesser degree,
Costa Rica in the contra war. Salva-
doran President Jose Napoleon
Duarte suffered public embarrass-
ment after declaring Wednesday that
his Army general staff had assured
him the Ilopango Air Force base had
not been used, while Hasenfus' state-
ments and the documents found on
the plane appeared to indicate oth-
erwise.
Meanwhile, relations between the
government and the U.S. Embassy
have been tense. Both sides com-
peted for the attention of the press,
with Nicaragua coming out ahead.
U.S. officials were appalled by
Nicaragua's move to parade the
coffins of the two American crash
victims down the road in front of
the embassy before returning them.
They called a late night press con-
ference Thursday to protest and
also to attempt to counteract some
effects of Hasenfus' appearance
hours earlier.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/02 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000605210014-6
 Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/02 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000605210014-6
U.S. officials attempted to bar
Nicaraguan and Eastern Bloc re-
porters from the conference, pro-
voking a brief boycott by American
journalists who feared the Ni-
caraguan government might retal-
iate. Eventually all reporters were
allowed in, but tempers on all sides
were frayed.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/02 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000605210014-6