World Notes Oct 27 1986

A wry smile crossed Congressman Gerry Studd's face last week as he confronted Assistant Secretary of State Eliott Abrams, a chief spokesman for the Reagan Administration's Central American policies. Testifying on Capitol Hill, Abrams had just flatly denied any U.S. government ties to an American cargo plane that Sandinista troops had shot down in Nicaragua on Oct. 5. Unconvinced, the Massachusetts Democrat snapped, "If the U.S. government is not paying for this, who is, the A-Team?" Equally frustrated, Democrat Peter Kostmayer of Pennsylvania charged that a "great deal of information is being held back."

The angry tone of the congressional hearing underscored the deepening mystery surrounding the downed Fairchild C-123K transport, which was carrying tons of arms and supplies to the contra rebels for their simmering U.S.-backed war with the Marxist-oriented Sandinistas. The jungle plane crash cast tantalizing light over the shadowy world of U.S. gunrunners in Central America -- and raised serious questions about the extent and legality of U.S. involvement there.

Shortly after his capture by Sandinista troops, former U.S. Marine Eugene Hasenfus, 45, the sole survivor of the four-man crew, linked the ill-fated supply mission to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Moreover, a passel of memos, business cards and logbooks found aboard the aircraft produced a trail of American names and phone numbers from California to Washington. The evidence raised an outcry in the capital, and for good reason: any direct American involvement in the Nicaraguan war would violate a ban laid down by Congress in 1984.

The debate over the downed plane sharpened last week as speculation about the U.S. role intensified. In Washington, Vice President George Bush admitted that he had twice met Max Gomez, one of two Cuban Americans whom Hasenfus identified as CIA agents in charge of contra supply missions from El Salvador's Ilopango air base, from which the downed plane had flown. Bush called Gomez, whose real name is Felix Rodriguez, a "patriot" who was advising El Salvador in its war with Marxist guerrillas.

That brought angry denials from El Salvador's President Jose Napoleon Duarte and Military Commander General Adolfo Blandon. They were embarrassed by the public linkage of Ilopango, where U.S. military advisers are stationed, to the contra flights. Indeed, the spotlight on Ilopango's role as a base for supplying the contras, long an open secret in Central America, brought new problems for Duarte as he struggled with the impact of the Oct. 10 earthquake in the capital of San Salvador that left more than 600 dead and thousands homeless. Duarte last week received a promise of $50 million in U.S. disaster relief from visiting U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz, who strove to downplay the contra problem. Shultz said the shot-down contra supply plane "was not part of the government's operation."