Accused Terrorist Helping to Supply the Contras
By JOSEPH B. TREASTER, Special to the New York Times
MIAMI -- Three veterans of the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of
Cuba, all with long ties to the Central Intelligence Agency and one
of them an accused
international terrorist, have emerged as key figures in
the clandestine
air network that delivered tons of weapons and
ammunition to
the anti-Sandinista rebels in Nicaragua.
One of the veterans,
Luis Posada Carriles, a 58-year-old expert in
guerrilla warfare
and demolitions, escaped from a Venezuelan prison in
August 1985
after being held for nearly 10 years on charges of
masterminding
a bombing that destroyed a Cuban airliner and killed 73
people. The
case is still pending in Venezuela.
According to
American crew members of the planes that carried the rebel
war materiel,
the three Bay of Pigs veterans were instrumental in setting
up the headquarters
for the supply operation in San Salvador and in
coordinating
cargo drops to rebel units operating inside Nicaragua.
Critics regard
Mr. Posada, who has devoted much of his life to trying to
undermine the
Communist Government of Fidel Castro, as a terrorist and
say his involvement
with United States-backed Nicaraguan rebels seems
starkly at odds
with the Reagan Administration's campaign against
international
terrorism.
Supporters, however,
regard Mr. Posada as a dedicated Cuban
nationalist
and question the validity of the bombing charges.
U.S. Admits No Role
Reagan Administration
officials have refused to acknowledge Mr.
Posada's participation
in the rebel supply operation. Administration
officials have
acknowledged that the United States monitored the
operation, but
they say it did not organize, finance or direct it. However,
many of those
whose participation has so far become known have had
long relationships
with United States intelligence services and military
forces.
One of the Bay
of Pigs veterans, Felix Ismael Rodriguez, who is 45 years
old and an expert
in guerrilla warfare, went to El Salvador in 1984 to train
helicopter crews
in aerial ambush and pursuit tactics, which friends said he
learned on C.I.A.
operations in South Vietnam.
The American
crewmen say Mr. Rodriguez, who was known in El
Salvador as
Max Gomez, helped them get permission to operate out of
the main base
of the Salvadoran Air Force near the capital of El Salvador
and served as
liaison between them and senior Salvadoran military
officers. The
Americans say Mr.
Rodriguez also
obtained Salvadoran Air Force identification cards for
them.
The American
airmen say Mr. Posada, who used the alias Ramon
Medina, was
in charge of such administrative matters as housing, ground
transportation
and daily living expenses and was referred to as "the
caretaker."
Friends recall that in some Cuban exile groups that organized
raids against
Cuba in the 1960' s, Mr. Posada was in charge of supplies,
including explosives.Field
Liaison With Contras
The third Bay
of Pigs veteran, Rafael Quintero, who is believed to be in
his middle to
late 40's, met with contra field commanders to determine
what supplies
they needed and where they wanted them dropped, then
transmitted
the information to the headquarters at Ilopango, the American
fliers said.
The American
airmen said Mr. Quintero regularly shuttled between
Miami, San Salvador
and the capitals of Costa Rica and Honduras and
was given the
nickname "The Traveler." They say he also used the code
name Ralph.
Cuban-American
friends here say Mr. Quintero has worked on a number
of C.I.A. projects
over the years throughout Latin America and possibly
also in Africa.
In 1983 Mr. Quintero
testified in a Washington court that he had
accepted an
advance of $30,000 against a fee of $1 million from a former
C.I.A. agent,
Edwin P. Wilson, to assassinate a Libyan dissident in Egypt,
but later changed
his mind.
The crew members
said Mr. Rodriguez had not originally been a part of
the rebel supply
operation, but that William J. Cooper, the chief pilot, had
turned to Mr.
Rodriguez for help because of his "local contacts" and that
Mr. Rodriguez
and the two other Bay of Pigs veterans soon became
important members
of the team. A Connection to Bush
The airmen said
tension arose between Mr. Rodriguez and Mr. Cooper
as to who was
in charge and that Mr. Cooper seemed intimidated by
assertions from
Mr. Rodriguez that he was a friend of Vice President
Bush. Mr. Bush
has referred to Mr. Rodriguez as "a patriot" and said he
met with him
three times, most recently at a reception in Miami on May
20 to mark Cuba's
independence.
According to
many accounts, Mr. Rodriguez and Mr. Posada worked for
about a year
at the Ilopango air base. They were often seen in the
company of military
and civilian officials of the United States and El
Salvador as
well as members of the contra forces. At least once,
according to
a United States Embassy spokesman in El Salvador, Mr.
Rodriguez had
lunch with the United States Ambassador, Edwin G. Corr.
Mr. Rodriguez
was decorated by the Salvadoran Government for his
work with the
Salvadoran Air Force and one foreigner who has closely
studied the
Salvadoran military said Mr. Rodriguez had "probably done
more than anyone
to improve the military and hurt the guerrillas."
Yet officials
of both the United States and El Salvador as well as rebel
leaders deny
any formal connection with either Mr. Rodriguez or Mr.
Posada.
The presence
of Mr. Rodriguez and Mr. Posada in El Salvador and their
work on the
contra resupply operation was made public by Eugene
Hasenfus, a
45-year-old American who parachuted from a supply plane
that was shot
down in Nicaragua in early October. Mr. Cooper and two
others died
in the crash. Mr. Hasenfus has been sentenced to 30 years in
prison by a
Nicaraguan military court. Ex-Official Corroborates
David A. Phillips,
a retired C.I.A. official who was in charge of the
agency's Latin
American operations until 1975, said in an interview that
the "stories
in the press" about Mr. Posada "seem pretty accurate,"
adding, "I couldn't
think of anything to dispute, including the parts saying
he was connected
to the agency."
A spokesman for
the C.I.A. would not say whether the three men had
ever worked
for the agency.
Friends of Mr.
Rodriguez describe him as a dedicated anti-Communist
and say they
believe he worked without salary in Central America.
Sometimes, the
friends said, they paid for airline tickets so that he could
visit his wife
and two grown children here. There have been persistent
rumors that
Mr. Posada's escape from the Venezuelan jail and his travel
across the Caribbean
to El Salvador were financed by wealthy
Cuban-Americans
in Miami.
In 1984 a group
of Cuban-Americans here formed a committee to raise
money for Mr.
Posada, Dr. Orlando Bosch, a Miami pediatrician and two
others jailed
in the Cuban airline bombing. The group appealed to the
United Nations
and Amnesty International to urge Venezuela to bring the
proceedings
to a conclusion.
Dr. Armando Cruz
and Dr. Alberto Hernandez, two physicians who have
been identified
in the past with the committee, refused through their
secretaries
to speak to a journalist. Sila Cuervo, a Bay of Pigs veteran
who has also
been identified with the committee, hung up shortly after a
journalist identified
himself. A Search of Phone Records
Mr. Cuervo is
the godfather of one of Mr. Posada's sons and, according
to records obtained
from the Salvadoran telephone company, received at
least two calls
from a telephone in one of two safehouses used by the
American air
crews in El Salvador and frequented by Mr. Rodriguez and
Mr. Posada.
The telephone company records show a number of calls to
friends and
relatives of Mr. Rodriguez and Mr. Posada in Miami from the
safehouses.
Friends and relatives
say they have spoken to Mr. Rodriguez and Mr.
Posada by telephone
in the last few weeks and that they are trying to
keep out of
the public eye; some have spoken to Mr. Rodriguez in the last
few days. He
is believed to be in the United States, possibly Miami. The
two others are
believed to be in Central America.
After the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, Mr. Rodriguez, Mr.
Posada and about
200 other participants were given commissions in the
United States
Army. As many as 100 of the invasion veterans, including
some who became
army officers, continued to work closely with the
C.I.A. on hundreds
of attempts to destroy Mr. Castro's regime.
In 1967 Mr. Rodriguez
was part of a United States Army Special Forces
team in Bolivia
that helped track down Che Guevara, the Argentine-born
revolutionary
colleague of Mr. Castro. Service in Vietnam
In Vietnam, friends
say, Mr. Rodriguez worked in helicopters of the
C.I.A.'s proprietary
airline, Air America, and was shot down five times.
In the mid-70'
s, friends say, he began receiving a United States
Government disabiity
pension.
In 1979 and 1980,
Mr. Rodriguez worked as an arms broker in Miami
and later, for
about two years, served as an adviser to the Argentine
military.
Donald P. Gregg,
the national security adviser to Mr. Bush and a former
C.I.A. official,
has said that he recommended Mr. Rodriguez for a job
with the Salvadoran
Air Force at Mr. Rodriguez's request. How Mr.
Posada came
to join Mr. Rodriguez in the rebel supply operation is not
clear.
After officer
training at Fort Benning, friends say, Mr. Posada spent most
of the 1960's
in raids and sabotage attacks against Cuba under the
direction of
the C.I.A. station in Miami. In the late 1960's and early
1970's he served
as an counterinsurgency advisor to the Venezuelan
Army and eventually
became chief of operations for its national police.
In 1974 he opened
a private security agency in Venezuela and also,
according to
one Miami friend, began manufacturing silencers for
handguns. He
was arrested in October 1976 on charges of blowing up
the Cuban airliner.