Contras Say They Bought Missile From Soviet Bloc

The SAM-7 missile that Nicaraguan rebels used to shoot down a Cuban-piloted helicopter this week was bought from a Soviet Bloc country and was put into action with the help of American supporters of the guerrillas, rebel officials said Friday.

Adolfo Calero, chief of the largest rebel army, said he bought the Soviet-made missile earlier this year from an East Bloc country, using funds contributed by private supporters.

“It was not given to us by the United States. It wasn’t even brokered by Americans. We bought it from the Communist Bloc,” Calero said in a telephone interview from his home in Miami. He refused to name the country which sold the missile.

Nicaragua’s Marxist government charged that the missile was given to the rebels, known as contras, by the United States despite a prohibition against military aid. Secretary of State George P. Shultz denied any U.S. government role.

Rebel sources said they acquired several of the missiles last summer but found them difficult to use until retired Lt. Gen. John K. Singlaub, their chief private fund-raiser in the United States, helped arrange for a technician to travel to the war zone, repair the missiles and train the rebels in maintenance.

Singlaub confirmed that the technical mission was “arranged by Americans in support of the freedom fighters,” as conservatives call the contras. But he refused to identify the technician or his nationality, saying, “It would put too many people in jeopardy.”

The SAM-7 is a portable, shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missile with a heat-seeking homing device. Contra officials said their men had been attempting to shoot down a helicopter for several months but initially found that the missiles frequently failed to fire.

“Then we got a man who knew about these things to come down,” Calero said. “One of our men had an experience with the SAM-7 that gave him the key to the problem. Our man pulled the trigger, but the missile didn’t go off. He got angry and jerked it off his shoulder and tossed it on the ground. Then it went off--boom!

Humidity Problem

“This gave the technician the key. The electrical contacts had a film on them . . . apparently because of the humidity. Our men began cleaning the contacts, and the missiles began to work,” he said.

Several U.S. conservative groups, including Singlaub’s Council for World Freedom, have been actively collecting private contributions for the contras, whose name comes from the Spanish word for counterrevolutionaries.

The groups claim to have raised more than $10 million but say they have carefully avoided violating laws against buying weapons or ammunition with U.S. donations. The contras’ arms purchases, they say, are made with funds provided by foreign governments, foreign donors or the foreign subsidiaries of U.S. firms.

American Volunteers

Congress has provided $27 million in “humanitarian” aid for the rebels, barring the contras from using those funds for arms purchases. Several U.S. groups also have sent volunteers to the contras’ camps in southern Honduras to train and advise the rebels.

Calero also said his forces may have shot down two helicopters, not just one, in their battle with the Sandinista army on Monday. U.S. officials said the report of the second helicopter downing could not be confirmed.

The SAM-7 missile, which has been produced by the Soviet Union since the early 1960s, is in the inventories of two dozen countries, including Cuba, Egypt and Israel, as well as all the nations of the Soviet Bloc.