Recalled CIA Chief in Costa Rica Reportedly Forced Into Retirement

The CIA is forcing early retirement on its station chief in Costa Rica, who was recalled last month after being accused of aiding former National Security Council aide Lt. Col. Oliver L. North’s military pipeline to Nicaragua’s contras, intelligence sources said Sunday.

The sources, insisting on anonymity, said that the station chief, who used the pseudonym Tomas Castillo, will reach early retirement age this spring. The move is a CIA attempt to protect Castillo’s superiors, who approved his activities at a Miami meeting of station chiefs in Central America about a year ago, one source said.

In a statement Sunday, CIA spokesman George Lauder denied that high-level agency officials approved support for the so-called private aid network, but refused comment on the decision to oust Castillo.

The Times reported Saturday that Castillo had told the presidential commission headed by former Sen. John Tower (R-Tex.) that his work for North was known to and tacitly approved by the CIA’s deputy director of operations, Clair George, and by the head of its Central American Task Force, Alan D. Fiers.

The intelligence agency has denied that it gave military support to the rebels in 1985 and 1986 at a time that Congress had outlawed all but intelligence assistance to the contras.