U.S. Accused of Spying for the Contras

The chief of Nicaraguan military intelligence Thursday accused the United States of using a massive electronic surveillance network to provide vital war information to anti-Sandinista guerrillas.

“In the course of this year, the United States has carried out 121 spy flights against the republic of Nicaragua,” Capt. Ricardo Wheelock, the intelligence chief, charged. He said that sophisticated U.S. equipment makes it possible for the contras, as the rebels are called, to receive an “X-ray of the deployment of the troops of the Popular Sandinista Army.”

Wheelock is the brother of Jaime Wheelock, one of the nine top leaders of the revolutionary Sandinista government. Speaking in a press conference, he gave an unusually detailed outline of what he said Sandinista intelligence has learned about U.S. activities in support of the contras.

He also accused neighboring Central American countries of actively helping the Nicaraguan rebels.

CIA ‘Information Center’

Wheelock said information gathered by the U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force “is delivered to an information center of the CIA, and then passed on to the forces” of the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, the main contras army.

He said that U.S. aircraft that he identified as “RC-135s”--apparently SR-135 spy planes--have made 47 flights this year to gather information on Nicaragua. He said that with this plane, Americans pick up electronic signals such as radio communications and telephone calls “as if it were a vacuum cleaner.”

“It permits them, practically on a daily basis, to have an X-ray of the deployment of the troops of the Popular Sandinista Army, and obviously that X-ray of the deployment of our troops is passed on” to the contras, he said.

He said that American U-2 spy planes also have flown 13 missions this year against Nicaragua, photographing airports, seaports and military installations. He said the U-2 cameras have such high resolution that if one photographed him, “it can tell whether I have shaved or not.”

‘Provocation of That Scope’

Many of the surveillance flights pass within the range of Sandinista artillery and rockets, Wheelock said, but the Sandinistas do not shoot. When asked why not, he said, “We know perfectly well what a provocation of that scope would mean for the revolution”--hinting that U.S. retaliation could be expected.

But he added that Nicaraguan airspace will be restricted this weekend as a security precaution, while the country celebrates on Saturday the anniversary of the Sandinistas’ rise to power in 1979. “The army will open fire, when the airspace is closed, on any plane that . . . tries to pass through this airspace,” he warned.

In addition to U.S. military spy flights, Wheelock said, more than 300 tactical reconnaissance and supply flights have been made in support of the contras this year. He said those flights have been made over Nicaraguan war zones from neighboring Costa Rica and Honduras by Americans, contras and pilots from the neighboring countries.

Wheelock also said 11 U.S. spy ships and missile frigates have been deployed off Nicaragua’s coasts this year, usually three at a time. One ship, a Coast Guard cutter, is used to tether a radar balloon, he said.

‘All Shipping’ Monitored

“With this balloon, they have the capability of watching all shipping that arrives at Nicaraguan ports and all air flights to the Republic of Nicaragua,” he said.

Wheelock accused Gen. Adolfo Blandon, chief of staff of the U.S.-supported Salvadoran army, of receiving arms shipments from Europe and passing them on to the contras. The Sandinista officer said the contras maintain a “naval center” on El Salvador’s Meanguera Island, in the Pacific, and a naval training center elsewhere in El Salvador.

He said the contras have an air base in Honduras at Aguacate that includes a landing field built by U.S. military forces.