IRAN-CONTRA: THE COVER-UP CONTINUES
Bernstein, Dennis
IRAN-CONTRA ver-up continues on the contra operation. Months before the Iran-contra scandal erupted, Terrell voluntarily provided the Miami U.S. Attorney, the FBI, Congress, and a host of...
...Attorney, the FBI, Congress, and a host of journalists with information about the grittier parts of the illegal contra network...
...Terrell did know too much...
...Posey: I don't understand the word definitively...
...Terrell acknowledged that he was aware of the plot to assassinate U.S...
...Now he's paying the price...
...When we look at targeting whistle-blowers, Jack Terrell becomes a prime example of a person who was exploited and utilized and then thrown by the wayside," says Mattes...
...Terrell left the con-tras in January 1985...
...He also spoke with many journalists and appeared in June of 1986 on the CBS news-magazine show, West 5 7th...
...He used Project Democracy, conceived in the early days of the Reagan Administration to promote U.S...
...According to Terrell, the following people were present at either one or both of the meetings: Robert Owen, John Hull (an American rancher in Costa Rica), CIA contractor Felipe Vidal, Joe Adams, Tom Posey (founder of CMA), and the contras' two leaders, Enrique Bermudez and Adolfo Calero...
...One of the security officers for Project Democracy met several times with Terrell and evaluated him as extremely dangerous...
...Government...
...Terrell and his attorney, former Miami public defender John Mattes, maintain that the indictments are selective prosecution that continues the cover-up which began in earnest when Terrell and several other disgruntled members of the secret war started revealing details of the scandal...
...But the indictments against Terrell and the other twelve defendants make no mention of the CIA, Oliver North, John Poin-dexter, or Robert Owen...
...Pastora had balked because the FDN was run by former members of Anastasio Somoza's National Guard...
...He leads the...
...About a year later he contacted law-enforcement officials and then went to Washington, D.C., where he provided information to Congress and became an investigator for the International Center for Development Policy...
...He has to be finessed out...
...Among the Federal agencies that have since taken an interest in Terrell are the FBI, the Customs Service, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and the Secret Service...
...In mid-December 1984, Terrell participated in two meetings to discuss the assassination of Pastora, who had angered the CIA by refusing to unite the contra southern front with the Honduran-based FDN...
...Terrell told the FBI "that the activities of the CMA were being coordinated by the CIA...
...This is the ultimate reward you get for talking," Terrell says...
...policy worldwide, to get Terrell...
...Robert Owen, a former aide to Senator (now Republican Vice Presidential candidate) Dan Quayle, acted as Oliver North's eyes and ears among the contras...
...He also discussed a CMA plot to blow up the U.S...
...All these people who were present knew what we were discussing and no one was negative," Terrell says...
...Posey: Well, for the mere fact that Mario would not do anything without Adolfo's approval, and Adolfo told me himself and Mario told me on numerous occasions that they didn't do anything unless the CIA was notified, and it was approved by the CIA...
...Feldman: Why...
...In 1984, Terrell joined Civilian Military Assistance (CMA), a U.S.-based mercenary outfit for the contras...
...Jose Coutin, a recruiter for the contras and Miami police informant, said in a sworn deposition that he was briefed on the plot by Terrell, Adams, and Posey...
...Attorney Jeffrey Feldman, conducted the grand jury as if the Iran-contra scandal had never broken, as if North had never admitted to planning, funding, facilitating, and actively covering up the secret supply operation...
...At the Center, Terrell prepared an exhaustive "Index of Participants," which listed the major and minor players in the contra secret war...
...Terrell faces up to thirty-three years' imprisonment and fines of up to $33,000...
...For years, everybody was claiming that Terrell was fabricating things...
...The memo said Terrell was "an active participant in the disinformation/active measures campaign against the Nicaraguan Democratic Resistance...
...District Court in Miami and his charges are at the center of Senator [John] Kerry's investigation in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee...
...When you blow the whistle, when you talk against the policy and start exposing corruption, fraud, gun deals, murder, conversion of aid for private use, drug dealing, secret illegal networks, and then the Administration's policy starts falling apart and people start falling off the wall like Humpty Dumpty, then they go after you with everything they got...
...Where's the fabrication...
...A July 28, 1986, memorandum from National Security Adviser John Poindex-ter to Ronald Reagan was entitled "Terrorist Threat: Terrell...
...right now Flako knows too much and it would do no one any good if he went to the press...
...Speak out he did...
...Posey: Yes, sir...
...When he picked himself up and started talking about it, he was targeted for speaking out...
...Terrell has appeared on various television documentaries alleging corruption, human-rights abuses, drug-running, arms smuggling, assassination attempts by the resistance and their supporters...
...This last appearance set off the White House...
...Feldman: What I am saying to you is that at the time you sent those trainers, you believed your actions were being condoned by the U.S...
...Ambassador [Lewis A.] Tambs and the CMA's plan to attack embassies" and blame it on the Sandinistas, the FBI documents state...
...After the West 57th piece by CBS two weeks ago, Project Democracy officials decided to use its security apparatus to attempt to determine how much Terrell actually knows," North wrote to Poindexter in a July 25 memo...
...North also swung into action to silence Terrell...
...Feldman: Were you ever told definitively that the CIA approved it...
...He soon become a key operative in some of the most sensitive contra operations, including a plan to assassinate former Sandinista hero and sometime contra Eden Pastora...
...Terrell went to the FBI on March 5, 1986...
...Posey is one of the thirteen defendants...
...could be embarrassing to RS [Richard Secord] and whoever, if he is in a situation where he is telling stories to make his point convincingly...
...In terms of the actual events, actual meetings that Terrell spoke of, actual times, people, places, they're all there," Mattes says...
...Owen wrote North a memo dated January 31, 1985, stating that it "would seem a good idea to deal with Flako [Terrell] as soon as possible...
...Terrell's attorney, John Mattes, says the documents he has received during discovery confirm Terrell's account...
...Mattes, Terrell's attorney, claims that Feldman encouraged the grand jury to view Terrell as the chief culprit...
...He is certainly going to quote names and organizations—known or not known—to show his great and intimate knowledge of 'secret operations.'" Eighteen months earlier, North was aware that Terrell might blow the cover on the contra operation...
...Did anyone tell you that...
...And the prosecutor, U.S...
...embassy in Costa Rica...
...That security officer, former CIA operative Glen Robinette, wrote in a July 17, 1986, memo to North that "Terrell may actually possess enough information— either from first-hand personal knowledge or from other sources—to be dangerous to our objectives...
...That bias comes out clearly in the questioning of Tom Posey of CMA, who said he was authorized by Mario Calero, brother of contra leader Adolfo Calero, to send trainers and soldiers to Honduras and Nicaragua...
...Though the memo purports to be about allegations that Terrell may be a foreign agent for the Nicaraguan government who was threatening to assassinate the President, its true meaning is summed up in the last paragraph: "Terrell's accusations have formed the basis of a civil law suit in the U.S...
...According to FBI documents, Terrell spoke about gun-running and drug trafficking by contra supporters...
...Obviously, these meetings took place...
Vol. 52 • November 1988 • No. 11
