North’s Cash Aid to Contras Is Told : Courier Tells of Secret White House Network, Delivering Money to Rebels

Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, acting as unofficial quartermaster for the Nicaraguan resistance, doled out tens of thousands of dollars to contra leaders from his White House safe at a time when the Reagan Administration was prohibited by Congress from assisting the rebels, the man who acted as North’s courier told Senate and House investigating committees Thursday.

The testimony of Robert W. Owen, who was paid $2,500 a month to carry cash, secret memos and intelligence information between the White House and Central America, provided the first detailed glimpse into the shadowy cloak-and-dagger world that North created to sustain the contras in armed combat with the Sandinista army after the cutoff of U.S. aid in 1984.

The activities described by Owen, who will return to testify before the committee Tuesday, along with contra leader Adolfo Calero, occurred during the period between 1984 and 1985 when the Reagan Administration was strictly prohibited by Congress from providing any direct or indirect assistance to the contras, including intelligence information. It was not until 1986 that Congress lifted the ban on intelligence-sharing with them.

Calero Tied to Checks

Owen’s most stunning disclosure was that North always kept several thousand dollars worth of travelers checks, supplied by Calero, in his safe in the Old Executive Office Building adjacent to the White House. The money then was secretly relayed by Owen to forces in Central America or dispensed to contra leaders in Washington apartments, parked cars and--on one occasion--on Pennsylvania Avenue, near the White House.

Borrowing from the netherworld of spy novels, each man also had a code name: “Steel Hammer” for North, “Spark Plug” for Calero and “TC”--The Courier--for Owen. Owen testified before the panels under limited immunity from prosecution.

Until Thursday, North’s role in this secret contra-supply network had been portrayed as that of planner, fund-raiser and confidant. But Owen, a former aide to Sen. Dan Quayle (R-Ind.), painted a more vivid picture of him as a hands-on “quartermaster” and tactician who supplied the contras with secret U.S. intelligence maps and photos, made cash payments, arranged for arms shipments and even provided pocket money to visiting contra leaders visiting the United States.

Johnathan Miller, White House director of administration, resigned only minutes after Owen told the committees that Miller had handled some of the contra cash from North’s safe. Miller cashed about $3,000 of the travelers checks at North’s request while he was an employee of the State Department, Owen said.

According to Owen, North several times gave him maps and photos to deliver to the contras that he said had been obtained from “across the river”--a reference to the Pentagon and CIA headquarters at Langley, Va. The prohibition on contra assistance laid down by Congress was specifically directed at participation by the CIA and the Pentagon.

In February, 1985, Owen was summoned by North to make a pickup directly outside the top-secret White House “Situation Room”--from which global crises are monitored for the President. But North was furious when he arrived because the maps he had hoped to send to the contras were blown up to 3 feet by 5 feet, the size usually used for display at White House briefings.

‘Had Choice Words’

“He had choice words for the people who provided them,” Owen said, adding that North had described his suppliers as “incompetent,” among other things.

The maps showed Sandinista forces massed at the Honduran border, Owen said. Another packet of maps and photos carried by Owen the previous November were designed to help the contras in a highly risky mission to blow up Sandinista helicopters, an operation that apparently was never carried out.

The safe where North kept Calero’s travelers checks was identified by Owen as the same one used by President Reagan’s first national security adviser, Richard V. Allen, who resigned in 1982 after disclosures that he had kept in it $1,000 received from two Japanese journalists, though he was cleared of any wrongdoing.

Owen said North joked that it was an “unlucky safe.” He said he did not know for certain that it had been used by Allen but added: “It makes a good story.”

Owen said that he did not know how much money North kept in his safe, but he assumed that the amount at any given time was modest because “there was always a concern about being short of cash.” He said he knew that the money came from Calero because he was sent to see the contra leader on a couple of occasions by North to ask for more travelers checks.

First Such Testimony

It was the first testimony that North, a highly regarded presidential aide, handled cash himself. While the extent of the purchases made with this money is not yet clear, it is known that Calero had control over large sums of money received from Saudi Arabia in 1985.

A memo carried by Owen from North to Calero in February, 1985, and later obtained by the committee, told the contra leader that $20 million “will be deposited in the usual account” the next week, Owen said. North also advised Calero to put $9 million to $10 million of it aside for logistics.

When Owen returned from that mission, he said, he had a list of military supplies that Calero wanted North to procure for him.

The transaction involving Miller, then employed in the State Department’s Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America, occurred the next month. Owen said that there was $6,000 to $7,000 in travelers checks and that he and Miller split up the responsibility for cashing them.

After he received Miller’s cash, he gave the total sum to an unnamed contra leader, believed to be Arturo Cruz, Owen testified. He said that the contra leader’s previous payments from the CIA had been cut off and that this was a final installment from North, who then arranged an alternative source of income.

Link to Miskito Leader

About the same time, Owen made a payment of several thousand dollars in cash to a Miskito Indian leader--believed to be Brooklyn Rivera--to persuade him to withdraw from negotiations with the Sandinistas and unite with other Indian factions, he testified. The Miskito leader received the money in Owen’s car, and he promised him some future payments as well, Owen said.

Owen also recalled standing outside the Old Executive Office Building on a cold, rainy night to pass an envelope full of money to another unidentified Miskito Indian leader, who needed it for food, hotel bills and “just to keep alive.”

In June, 1985, Owen was sent by North to a meeting at the home of retired Army Maj. Gen. John K. Singlaub in Tabernash, Colo., to discuss a $5-million shipment of arms that he was about to make to the contras, the witness told the committees. Also in attendance were Soldier of Fortune Publisher Robert K. Brown and several of his associates, including Ed Dearborn of Newport Beach, Calif., Owen said.

From there, Owen traveled--carrying a list on a yellow legal pad of the weapons that Singlaub intended to buy--to San Francisco, where Calero was delivering a speech at the Commonwealth Club, he said. He and Calero then conferred with North by telephone about the list.

Assessed Contra Needs

Owen was employed by a prominent Washington public relations firm, Gray & Co., when he first met North. When Gray declined to do work for the contras, Owen went to Central America to assess the needs of the contras, as their funds were running low in mid-1984.

His original report to North said that Calero wanted $1 million a month for the guerrillas, or $1.5 million if they were to expand their forces, Owen said. The Saudis provided $1 million a month later in that year.

By the fall of 1984, Owen was receiving a $2,500-a-month salary from Calero for his job as courier, though he portrayed his role as “very fluid.” He also founded a group called the Institute for Democracy, Education and Assistance in 1985 that received a $50,000 grant from the State Department.

Among other things, Owen claimed responsibility for introducing Calero to John Hull, an Indiana man who owns a farm in Costa Rica. The farm and its link to the contra leadership has long been shrouded in secrecy but, according to Owen, he received $10,000 a month to provide supplies to the rebels.

Staff writer Doyle McManus contributed to this story.