Ohioan Believed ‘Domino Theory,’ Worked to Stop Communism

The man Nicaragua says it arrested on suspicion of spying has described himself as a counterterrorist who began helping the contras in an effort to stop the spread of communism in Central America.

“I firmly believe in the domino theory,” Sam Nesley Hall said in a June, 1985, interview with the Associated Press, describing himself as a self-employed military adviser and counterterrorist who was teaching commando tactics to the Miskito Indians in Nicaragua.

Hall, a 1960 Olympic medalist, former state legislator and brother of Rep. Tony P. Hall (D-Ohio), made no secret of his work helping the contras fighting Nicaragua’s leftist Sandinista government.

The Nicaraguan government said Sunday that Hall, 49, was carrying military maps in his sock when he was arrested Friday near a military air base.

“He said that he was working for an organization that . . . was specialized in intelligence and espionage on military objectives . . . and that he was working for the U.S. government interests,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Angela Saballos said in a telephone interview.

Hall’s congressman brother, who voted earlier this year against continuing aid to the contras, was “not too anxious to take calls,” spokesman Michael Gessel said Sunday in Washington.

The congressman issued a press release saying: “I hope to discuss this soon with State Department officials before taking any action.

“I do not share the same views on U.S policy in Central America as my brother, but I love him and pray for his safety.”

Hall’s mother, Anna R. Hall, said here Sunday that until about two months ago, her son had been working in a Florida furniture store. She said a friend of her son told her Saturday that he was in Nicaragua and “was supposed to come back this coming Tuesday.”

“I’m just scared to death to do or say anything,” she said.

At the time of the 1985 interview, Hall, a divorced father of three, was working with Civilian Military Assistance, the group in Flint City, Ala., that has aided the contras.

He showed off a wound in his side that he said was connected with the group’s activities but would provide no details. He also said he once shot himself in the leg in 1974 while addicted to drugs.

He told the Dayton Daily News and Journal Herald in a 1984 interview that he was wounded in 1983 in an exchange of gunfire with Communists in Angola.

“I feel in some of the things I do, I save some lives, some American lives,” he said.

“I like challenge,” Hall said in the 1985 interview. “I think I’m good at what I do. You have to be a little different.”

Hall said he had trained with French, British, Dutch and Israeli commandos. In one 12-month period, Hall said he had spent $89,000 on weapons, equipment and travel for his training.

Hall attended military school as a child and was in Air Force ROTC. He attended Ohio State University, where he won several collegiate diving titles. He won a silver medal for springboard diving in the 1960 Rome Olympics.

A track injury forced him out of the Air Force in 1961, Hall said.

Hall, whose late father was a mayor of Dayton, served as a Democrat in the Ohio House of Representatives in 1964 and 1965.

He said he quit politics because “I thought it was too phony.”

In 1985, Hall said he had become a born-again Christian and a Republican who strongly supported President Reagan’s policies. But he said he wanted to do nothing that would hurt his brother’s political career.