U.S. Fumes at Sandinista Denial of Access to Prisoner

The State Department blasted the Nicaraguan government today for what it said was the Sandinistas’ refusal to grant U.S. officials access to the survivor of Sunday’s plane crash inside Nicaragua.

Acting spokesman Charles Redman said the U.S. Embassy in Managua delivered a diplomatic note Tuesday requesting consular access to Eugene Hasenfus and asking for the remains and personal effects of the two Americans who died in the crash of the cargo plane.

The plane was on a mission to resupply Nicaraguan rebels.

“Our representative was not received by the Nicaraguan government and we view this with the utmost seriousness,” Redman said. “The rendering of consular services is an essential part of the functioning of an embassy.”

Government Connection Denied

Meanwhile, President Reagan said his Administration knows that American citizens and private groups are trying to help anti-government rebels in Nicaragua but he denied anew that the cargo plane that was shot down had any connection to the U.S. government.

“We’ve been aware that there are private groups and private citizens that have been trying to help the contras to that extent but we did not know the exact particulars of what they’re doing,” Reagan told reporters as he left the White House on a campaign trip.

Asked whether he approved of private efforts aimed against Nicaragua’s leftist government, Reagan said, “We’re in a free country where private citizens have a great many freedoms.”

He added that “some years ago, many of you spoke approvingly of something called the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish Civil War.”

Fought Against Franco

The Abraham Lincoln Brigade, actually a battalion, was organized by a group of Americans in the 1930s to fight on the side of Spanish partisans against the fascist Gen. Francisco Franco.

When a reporter asked if there had been any U.S. involvement in the plane shot down in Nicaragua, he said: “I’m glad you asked. Absolutely none.”

He said he did not know what efforts were under way to secure the release of the surviving American crewman or the bodies of people who were killed in the crash.

He said that while they were American citizens, “there is no government connection with that at all.”

Later, arriving in Raleigh, N.C., for a political speech, Reagan was asked who the men on the airplane were working for and replied, “Not us.”

When asked “Who then, Singlaub?” he replied, “Don’t know.”

Singlaub Denies Responsibility

Retired Maj. Gen. John K. Singlaub, who has raised private aid for the contras, and Civilian Material Assistance, a paramilitary group which has sent trainers to the rebels, have denied responsibility for the plane.

The survivor of the crash was identified as Eugene Hasenfus, 45, of Marinette, Wis. Nicaraguan army officers said one of the dead crew members was a Nicaraguan and the other two were Americans identified as Wallace Blaine Sawyer Jr. and William J. Cooper.

In Magnolia, Ark., Wallace Blaine Sawyer Sr., said he believed his son was one of those who died in the crash.

Sawyer said his son, a 41-year-old Air Force Academy graduate and Vietnam veteran, was a contract pilot but was not working for the U.S. government.