NICARAGUANS NET $3,000 FROM $220,000 DINNER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000200880086-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 14, 2010
• Sequence Number: 86
• Publication Date: September 3, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT-] Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/14: CIA-RDP91-00587R000200880086-2
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WASHINGTON POST
3 September 1985
Nicairagtians-Net $3,000:
From X220,000 Dinner
April Ihnd?Raiser Featured Speech by Reagan
By Robert Parry
Associated Press
Nicaraguan refugees got only $3,000 of
the $219,525 taken in on their behalf at an
April fund-raising dinner featuring a speech
by President Reagan, according to an inter-
nal audit.
The Nicaraguan Refugee Fund, which re-
ceived White House help in arranging the
April 15 event, said costs of the dinner to-
taled $218,376, including $116,938 in con-
sulting fees and $71,163 to feed the nearly
700 people at the $250- to $500-a-plate
dinner.
From the dinner and other revenues, the
fund spent $3,000 to ship relief supplies to
refugees in Central America.
The audit follows an earlier disclosure
that the refugee fund was started a year
ago with the secret involvement of the Ni-
caraguan Democratic Force, or FDN, the
largest U.S.-backed rebel army fighting to
overthrow Nicaragua's leftist government.
Fund officials say no money has gone to the
rebels.
According to the fund's internal audit, the
dinner's consultant costs included $13,000
for "fund-raising," $9,688 for "publicity,"
$61,250 for "consultant termination fees"
and $33,000 for "consultant fees."
Michael Schoor, a fund attorney, said the
chief reason the dinner did not raise signif-
icant amounts for the refugees was the fail-
ure of many people to live up to their do-
nation commitments.
"If the outstanding pledges came in, it
would be a marvelous success," Schoor said,
estimating that those pledges total about
$80,000.
Others involved with the dinner said the
largest consultant payment-$50,000-
went to Miner and Fraser Public Affairs
Inc. for its work organizing the fund and
helping arrange the dinner.
According to an AP story in June, two
sources, who insisted on anonymity, said
the refugee fund was started a year ago
through a secret agreement between the
Miner and Fraser firm and the Nicaraguan
Development Council, the FDN's Washing-
ton-based corporate arm.
Edie Fraser, president of Miner and Fra-
ser, confirmed the agreement, but said the
arrangement was handled by Alvaro Riso, a
Nicaraguan exile who was working at Miner
and Fraser at the time.
Both Rizo, a former diplomat for Nicara-
gua's late dictator Anastasio Somoza De-
bayle, and Bosco Matamoros, the FDN's
Washington spokesman, denied any formal
ties between the refugee fund and the the
rebel's development council. But Rizo called
relations between the groups "very friend-
According to a July 3, 1984, letter, ob-
tained by the AP, the Miner and Fraser firm
urged FDN director Alfonso Callejas to cre-
ate "a fund-raising campaign for Nicaraguan
refugees" that would use the FDN's devel-
opment council as the "umbrella organiza-
tion to receive all donations."
Creation of the Nicaraguan Refugee Fund
last Sept. 10 followed another fund-raising
effort secretly organized by the FDN, using
a Panamanian-based corporation, the Hu-
man Development Foundation, according to
an internal document and a former FDN
director, Edgar Chamorro.
Chamorro, who was ousted as an FDN
director last November, said the FDN used
the Human Development tion to
place fund-raising aMls for Nicaragua n
re ugees in major Anierian newsnewspapers in
July 1984. But he said were de-
signed less to raise money than to create
the impression of private aid noing to the
rebels an thus conceal Central [EtElligence
Agency a or s to "launder the
FL)N through foreign vernments.
spokeswoman aperson denied
tha-tffe- CIA had been ,!!!z cved in the fund-
raising.
private fund-raising efforts came
after conv -M
refused ea
iiii! s uest
or more UA funds to suooort the t-
cars n rebels. From 1981 to last ear
IN CIA spent an estimated million sup-
plying and directing the re This sum-
mer, n in non-
et aid to the rebels, t barred, a CIA
role.
In addressing the Nicaraguan Refugee
Fund dinner in April, Reagan denounced
Nicaragua's six-year-old leftist government
as "a communist dictatorship" and praised
those at the dinner for helping the refugees.
"While the world was turning away, you
were helping," Reagan said. "People like
you are America at its best." -
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/14: CIA-RDP91-00587R000200880086-2