TWO TEXANS PLAY ROLE IN LAROUCHE CASE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90G01353R001300090006-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 23, 2012
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: March 27, 1988
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/23
CIA-RDP90GO1353R001300090006-7
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/23
CIA-RDP90GO1353R001300090006-7
 Ail
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/23: CIA-RDP90G01353R001300090006-7
Two Texans Play
Role in LaRouche Case
By John F. Harris
Waahinictm lh,t Staff Writer
HORSESHOE BAY, Tex.-When
the federal government wanted to
,learn more about the shadowy, con-
spiracy-obsessed world of intrigue
traveled by political extremist
Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr., it talked
to people who knew the terrain: two
swashbuckling Texans who for
years have made the world of con-
spiracy and intrigue their natural
habitat.
Gary Howard and Ronald Tucker
emerged two weeks ago as key fig-
ures in the continuing federal con-
spiracy trial against LaRouche in
Boston when documents released in
the case seemed to bolster a central
theme of the LaRouche group's de-
fense: that the government secretly
tried to infiltrate the group ? at the
same time that officials assembled
their criminal case against the pe-
rennial presidential candidate.
The two longtime government
informants said they were as a in
October 1984 by the FBI and the
CIA if they would be willing to pen-
etrate and gather information about
the Loudoun County-based
LaRouche organization. But How-
ard and Tucker, in an interview in
this resort community west of Aus-
tin, said the infiltration was aborted
before it got under way because
government agents did not give the
go-ahead.
The emergence of Howard and
Tucker has provided a strange twist
in a trial already noteworthy for
exotic characters and unexpected
contortions. The Texans, who were
key informants several years ago in
highly publicized cases for the U.S.
Customs Service, said they have
operated for years as government
informants involving terrorist or-
ganizations and that they were once
contacted by the family of Andrei
Sakharov concerning a plot to help
free the political dissident from the
Soviet Union.
Some federal officials and others
familiar with the proposed infiltra-
tion of the LaRouche organization
acknowledge that a meeting be-
tween federal agents and the two
Texans took place, but they dispute
Howard and Tucker's contention
that it was the government who
initiated the meeting. Sources say it
was Howard and Tucker or their
attorney who sought the contact.
The FBI and the CIA, whose rep-
resentatives were e alleged tie
been present in the Washington law
office Where Howard and Tucker
claimed the LaRouc a enetration
was first discussed,-have declined to
comment. One source said no
re resentative was resent.
Despite Howard's and Tucker's
statements that the infiltration nev-
er- actually occurred, the defense
insists that there may yet be evi-
dence of a politically motivated gov-
ernment vendetta.
"Certainly it has implications for
the case," said William Moffitt, an
attorney for Jeffrey Steinberg, a top
LaRouche lieutenant on trial in Bos-
ton. "There are too many coinci-
dences here."
LaRouche group lawyers say the
proposed infiltration was part of a
larger government campaign to de-
stroy his organization.
The prosecutor in the case, As-
sistant U.S. Attorney John Mark-
ham, has said in the courtroom that
the LaRouche group's allegations of
a conspiracy against it are baseless.
LaRouche and some associates
are charged with conspiring to ob-
struct a federal investigation into
allegations of credit card fraud in
connection with his 1984 presiden-
tial campaign. Last week, prosecu-
tors in the three-month-old trial
sought to show that intense pres-
sure from LaRouche led fund-rais-
ers to make false promises to pro-
spective donors.
Another mystery to surface from
the declassified documents in Bos-
ton was the aborted scheme to free
Sakharov, in which family members
would pay the Texans to help free
the physicist from the Soviet Union.
Howard and Tucker said in the
interview that members of the
Sakharov family advanced them
$20,000 in October 1984 as the
initial payment in a planned $2 mil-
lion deal in which the Texans
claimed they could win Sakharov's
release by using highly sensitive
intelligence information as leverage
against the Soviets.
Efrem Yankelevich, a Sakharov
in-law and resident of Newton,
Mass., acknowledged that his family
paid money to private intelligence
operatives who claimed that they
could help free Sakharov, but re-
I IM New TOrK I Imes
The Washington Times
The Wall Street Journal
The Christian Science Monitor
New York Daily News
USA Today
The Chicago Tribune
fused to say how much money or
whether Howard and Tucker were
party to the deal.
Yankelevich also revealed that in
late 1984 or early 1985 he met
with LaRouche at his estate near
Leesburg in an effort to raise mon-
ey to meet the costs asked by the
free-lance operatives. LaRouche
seemed interested, but never con-
tributed any money, Yankelevich
said.
Howard and Tucker said that af-
ter the proposed LaRouche and
Sakharov cases fell through, gov-
ernment representatives contacted
one or both of them to do a variety
of jobs on the government's behalf:
to investigate Libyan money laun-
dering in Europe, to learn about
alleged terrorist camps based in
wow
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Mexico, and to share their findings
with the chief counsel for Vice
President Bush.
The men said the federal govern-
ment has cast them unfairly as ren-
egades who manipulated the gov-
ernment for personal gain. Also,
they have filed suit in U.S. Claims
Court in the District against the
Customs Service, claiming they are
owed $1.4 million from an aborted
sting operation in the early 1980s
against an alleged international
arms merchant.
"They call us bounty hunters,"
said Howard. "There is nothing that
we have ever done that we weren't
requested to do" by the govern-
ment.
The FBI document revealed in
the Boston case takes a different
view: "It is the opinion of [FBI
agents] that [retired Army Sgt.
Maj. Fred] Lewis, Howard and
Tucker will sell information to any
and all U.S. agencies. Once they
have provided the information, they
will then attempt to sell it to other
agencies."
Howard and Tucker said the pro-
posed LaRouche and Sakharov deal-
ings were arranged through the
same contact, F. Keith Adkinson,
the director of Democrats for Rea-
gan in the 1980 campaign and a
former attorney for the. two
Texans. Adkinson has declined to
comment on the alleged events.
Howard said he met Adkinson in
September 1984 on a hunting trip
in Texas, where the two men hit it
off. Within several weeks, they
were discussing the possibility of
forming a company together, How-
ard said, with the attorney using his
political connections and the
Texans their intelligence back- "still willing to reinstitute the con-
ground to win business from cor- tacts that you had made before"
porations and governments. with the LaRouche group.
A prospective firm, never actu- One phone can prompted the end
any formed, was to be called Man- of both the LaRouche and Sakharov
gudai International. A brochure for ventures, according to Howard.
this proposed venture explained In early 1985, Howard said he
that the group took its name from a received a call from the LaRouche
select cadre in Genghis Khan's organization asking him to come to
army of fighting men "who loved Leesburg to discuss the Sakharov
death and the proximity of death, case.
not because of any particular rea- Howard said he was angry with
son, but simply because they were the Sakharov family for spurning his
born that way." instructions not to discuss their
The document stated that Man- dealings with other parties. Notified
gudai "is not a traditional security, of the call from the LaRouche or-
firm or international investigating ganization, Adkinson advised How-
firm. It is a 'can do' action firm ded- and and Tucker to drop all dealings
icated to achieving results for its with LaRouche, the Texans said.
clients." ' This was not the end of their
Initial meetings to discuss the dealings with or on behalf of the
LaRouche and Sakharov projects federal government, according to
took place in Adkinson's office, Howard and Tucker.
Howard and Tucker said. In later exchanges, they said, a
Howard said he was considered key entre to the government was
for a possible LaRouche infiltration John Cupp, who was said to have
because he had been introduced to played a role in the Iran-contra af-
Steinberg earlier that year by Lew- fair. Cupp served in the late 1970s
is. Lewis' name surfaced two weeks with Lewis in the Army's elite Del-
ago in the Boston LaRouche trial in to Force antiterrorist unit, Lewis
a telex from retired Air Force ma- said in an interview.
jor general Richard V. Secord to Lt. When Howard, Lewis and Tucker
Col. Oliver L. North saying that learned information that they said
"our man here claims Lewis has info indicated terrorist camps were op-
against LaRouche." erating in Mexico, Lewis said he
The Texans said they were put in gave this information to Cupp, who
touch with the Sakharov family then sent it to North via Secord.
through a private detective who Cupp and Secord confirmed the
knew Adkinson. events in interviews.
Howard said the FBI seemed ea- Later in May 1986, Howard,
ger to pursue a LaRouche infiltra- Tucker and Lewis said they met
lion at their first meeting. Later, with Boyden Gray, the chief counsel
however, . interest appeared to to Vice President Bush, to discuss
wane. the alleged terrorist bases in Mex-
Howard said the agency failed to ico.
follow a prearranged plan to use Gray did not return telephone
Adkinson as the liaison to give the calls for comment. According to
go-ahead for the infiltration. In- others familiar with the meeting, it
stead, he said, the bureau repeat- was arranged through Gary Paint-
edly contacted him directly. In what er; a politically connected sheriff in
Howard said is a tape of a telephone Midland, Tex., where Howard and
conversation with a Dallas FBI Tucker now work as part-time dep-
agent, a voice asks Howard if he is uties.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/23: CIA-RDP90G01353RO01300090006-7