PAIR LINKED TO IRAN MISSILE PLOT PUT OUT MAGAZINES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000605700064-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 2, 2010
• Sequence Number: 64
• Publication Date: August 3, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/02 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000605700064-5
ARTICLE AP RED
ON PAGE
P4-TT
LOS ANGELES TIMES
3 August 1985
Fair Linked to Iran issi e IP o
Put Out Magazines
: y NANCY SKELTON and SAUL RUBIN, Times Staff Writers
=SAN FRANCISCO-Two Bay
Ada men accused of being part of a
:pto sell thousands of missiles to
were described Friday by
-hinds and acquaintances as per-
was a penchant for writing in
electronic warfare maga-
fact, Paul Sjeklocha, alias Paul
?C)Kter. and George Neranchi oper-
and. for the last several months out
?bf' small Santa Clara magazine
canipany that published two highly
lsghnical defense system journals.
ADA Publishing Co., which was
reported to be in financial difficul-
ties after failing to meet publication
5CRedules for several months, is
now ready to resume operations,
according to one of its writers.
? Neranchi is the firm's publisher
and Sjeklocha is "undercurrents
editor."
Conspiracy Charge
Seven people, including Sjeklo-
cfia. Neranchi and a U.S. Army
lieutenant colonel, were charged
'I'1ursday with conspiracy to sell
sophisticated American and
French weapons to Iran for more
112n $140 million.
. Sjeklocha allegedly told an un-
dercover FBI agent he had re-
ceived "between $6 million and $8
lnillion in profit" from arms deal-
ings with the Iranians over the last
two years.
-. In interviews with friends,
iwighbors and acquaintances, Sjek-
locha was described as a colorful
braggart, full of stories about ex-
gloits in the Soviet Union and
China. Neranchi was pictured as a
mild-mannered, successful Silicon
Valley executive.
Harry Martin of Napa, publisher
of a competing magazine, Defense
fy-stems Review, and man who
Wired ~Akiocha aneranc i
Work for another Journal in 1983,
*called wo'
never shut up." eranc i on the.
her hand, their former said,
was en e, ersona a ... more
oss -mou e about things.
Work With CIA Claimed
? Martin said Sjeklocha told him
that he woritea for the CIA 'in
cow during the lV70a taking
dissidents out of the Soviet union.
R~klocha told that he was
*ter arrested By the ussians
Sold in a Yugoslavian jall 1710
101991.
kTocha also claimed, accord-
ing to Martin, that he was once shot
il, the head on the Chinese-Russian
border and that the "most beautiful
tbing he ever saw was the face of
the Russian soldier as he was
chrried to safety."
`Martin said that while Sjeklocha
was a "name-dropper and a master
4 getting people to do things for
film," Neranchi was more "down to
eprth "
Although Martin said the pair
were not particularly good friends,
they overcame their personal diffi-
culties enough to launch, two de-
fense publications, Journal of C4I
Countermeasures and Military Sci-
ence and Technology, together
with Laina Farhat, Neranchi's fi-
athce.
Experts Elisted
The threesome were able to
eilist the support of many
well-known experts in the defense
field, including Reagan Adminis-
tration arms control negotiator Eu-
gene V. Rostow and at least two
senior fellows at the Hoover Insti-
tution at Stanford University.
One source at the Hoover Insti-
tution, a contributor to the maga-
zines who asked not to be identi-
fied, described Sjeklocha as "an
engaging man, widely read-a man
of broad culture."
Julian Lake, a retired Navy
admiral and a contributor to the
journals, said he disagreed with
Martin's assessment of Sjeklocha.
"He didn't boast a lot-at least to
roe," Lake said from his Santa
Clara home Friday. He agreed that
the pair have different personali-
ties.
'Wheeler-Defier'
"Neranchi was a marketeer,"
Lake said, "while Cutter (Sjeklo-
$a) was a more of a wheeler-deal-
er type of guy."
Sjeklocha, 47, lives with his sec-
ond wife, Pat, in a modest home in
the western part of San .Jose. One
resume lists him as a one-time
college professor, but his last
*own occupation was working for
the magazine. Martin said Sjeklo-
cha was born in Iowa of Yugoslav
parents.
A profile printed in the Septem-
ber, 1984, issue of the Journal of
C41 Countermeasures describes
Sjeklocha as a "political scientist
with an academic background in
Communist systems (who) served
for a time in Moscow with the USIA
(United States Information Agen-
cy)"
USIA officials in Washington
confirmed Sjeklocha worked for
the agency in 1963 in Moscow but
was barred from future employ-
ment with the agency after he
wrote a book that the agency said
compromised a dissident Soviet
artist. Sjeklocha's "Unofficial Art
in the Soviet Union" was published
by the University of California
Press in 1967.
Sjeklocha's bent for the flamboy-
ant sometimes rubbed people the
wrong way.
One of Sjeklocha's neighbors fi-
nally "got tired of listening to him"
talk about his many trips abroad.
"He was always telling you how he
was going over to Paris and other
places like that to have meetings
with admirals and generals... ,"
Norman Widaseck said.
But another neighbor, Marilyn
Intrieri, found Sjeklocha stimulat-
ing.
"He was a very patriotic person
who cared about his country... ,"
Intrieri said. "He was appalled
when the Berkeley City Council
refused to have a Pledge of Alle-
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/02 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000605700064-5