Supply Effort Seen Hurt by Loss of C-123 : Many Documents Found in Wreckage, Sandinistas Assert

The capture of documents from the cargo plane shot down this week with three Americans among its crew represents a setback to the secret network supplying Nicaraguan rebels, Sandinista officials claimed Friday.

Military and civilian officials said the American crew was “arrogant” to have carried so much personal and aircraft information on board, including flight plans, telephone lists and identification these officials say links the crew to El Salvador’s air force.

“They obviously felt as if nothing was ever going to happen to them,” said a Sandinista official who asked not to be identified.

Shot Down Sunday

The camouflaged C-123 aircraft was shot down Sunday as it was carrying arms and ammunition to the contras, U.S.-backed rebels seeking to overthrow Nicaragua’s Sandinista government. Two Americans and an unidentified Latin American were killed. Crew member Eugene Hasenfus parachuted to safety and was captured Monday in the southern Nicaraguan jungles.

As the U.S. Embassy authorities here shipped the remains of pilot William J. Cooper and co-pilot Wallace Blaine Sawyer Jr. to their families in the United States, Hasenfus met with an embassy consular officer Friday for the first time since his capture.

A American spokesman complained that the Sandinistas allowed Consul Donald Tyson only 11 minutes with Hasenfus and that seven Sandinistas were with them all through their meeting.

Espinoza’s Version

Spokesman Manuel Espinoza for President Daniel Ortega said that Tyson’s meeting with Hasenfus lasted 20 minutes and that the latter requested clothes, toothpaste and shaving gear. Espinoza said that Tyson delivered the prisoner a letter from his wife, Sally, and that both the wife and Tyson would be allowed to visit Hasenfus again.

At the United Nations in New York, Nicaragua Foreign Minister Miguel d’Escoto announced that the Marxist-led Sandinista government would put Hasenfus on trial, but officials in Managua said that authorities still had not decided on the charges to be lodged against him.

Nor has it been decided whether Hasenfus will be tried by a civilian court, by a military court or by one of the so-called Popular Anti-Somocista Tribunals, special courts set up to try political and “counterrevolutionary” cases.

A Foreign Ministry source said that a government committee, with representatives from the Foreign Ministry, Justice Ministry, Supreme Court and the armed forces, is studying the case.

Analysis of Documents

Espinoza said that officials told Hasenfus and Tyson that the prisoner would be allowed an attorney and given all rights of due process.

Meanwhile, military officials continued to analyze dozens of documents they said were taken from the C-123 and its crew.

“We think this has been a blow,” said one official, who asked not to be identified. “We now see their system for dropping supplies, where and when, at what altitude, where they crossed the border. Their scheme is broken”

The official said she hoped the dozens of names and telephone numbers obtained would help them break the contras’ supply network.

Sandinista officials have said in recent interviews that the contras have been increasingly dependent on air drops for their supplies because Sandinista patroling of this country’s northern frontier with Honduras has been intensified.

Several Pilots Lost

Lt. Col. Javier Carrion, who oversees the war operations in the north, said that the contras are also dependent on U.S. pilots because they have lost several of their own pilots in the last three years.

But a Western diplomat familiar with the guerrilla war said he believes any damage to the supply network will be temporary, because flight plans and radio codes that may have been compromised can be changed.

“This is really more of a political embarrassment for the governments of the United States and El Salvador than a logistical problem. I would be surprised if this couldn’t be put together again without irreparable damage,” the diplomat said, asking not to be identified.