White House Got Photos of Airlift : Secord Aide Says North Told Him Album Would Be Shown to Reagan

Retired Air Force Col. Robert C. Dutton, operations chief of a private network that flew arms to Nicaragua’s contras , testified Wednesday before congressional investigators that he prepared a photograph album of his operation and gave it to a White House aide who said it would be shown to “the top boss”--President Reagan.

The album, which Dutton gave to Lt. Col. Oliver L. North in late September, 1986, and which was later found in North’s White House office, has since been dusted for fingerprints by the FBI. It is not known whether the President’s fingerprints were found on it.

Reagan has denied that he knew of any involvement by members of his Administration with private efforts to arm the contras--efforts that occurred during a period in which U.S. government aid to the Nicaraguan rebels was banned.

North’s Boast Cited

North also boasted that “the old man” would protect him from any congressional inquiries into his secret activities on behalf of the Nicaraguan rebels, according to an account by retired CIA agent Felix Rodriguez, the other witness who testified Wednesday before the House-Senate panel investigating the Iran-contra affair.

Rodriguez said North told him in June, 1986, that Congress “cannot touch me, because the old man loves my ass.” North made the comment as he gestured toward a TV set in his office that was tuned into a congressional debate over aid to the rebels, Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez, who testified without an immunity grant and without a lawyer, said he met several times with Vice President George Bush in 1985 and 1986, but he insisted he never told Bush or members of the vice president’s staff of his activities on behalf of the contras. A Cuban-American veteran of the Bay of Pigs invasion who had CIA experience in Latin America and Southeast Asia, Rodriguez acted as the supply operation’s liaison with local officials in El Salvador, where it was based.

His meetings with Bush and key members of the vice president’s staff had been seen as a potential link between the vice president and the contra supply operation during the time that most official U.S. aid was illegal.

“At no point in any of these conversations did I ever mention anything that will remotely be connected to the Nicaraguans--to the contras,” Rodriguez insisted.

However, Rodriguez also said he was introduced to North by Bush aide Donald P. Gregg, under whom Rodriguez had served during his Vietnam War-era days with the CIA in Southeast Asia. Both Bush and Gregg have denied knowing the extent of the supply operation.

Testimony by Dutton and Rodriguez gave the first detailed picture of both the frustrations and the feats of daring that comprised the day-to-day operations of the supply network.

Dutton, whose Air Force experience had centered on high-risk “special operations” such as abortive efforts in 1980 to rescue U.S. hostages in Iran, was recruited by retired Maj. Gen. Richard V. Secord to straighten out an air operation that had been plagued by an inability to get needed supplies to scattered bands of rebels seeking to attack Nicaragua’s Sandinista forces from the south. Secord, a North associate, was the supply effort’s chief organizer.

Couldn’t Find Rebels

Despite repeated efforts, the fliers usually were unable to locate the rebels and were forced to turn around and take their arms shipments back to their base, said Dutton, who testified under a limited grant of immunity.

In one instance, Dutton said, he received “a very desperate plea for help; in fact, claiming that we were playing with their lives. I mean, this is the way that the troops felt, when in fact, we were flying down there trying to find them to make drops to them, and we just couldn’t find them at night.”

Although Secord had hired Dutton and was paying his $5,000-a-month salary, Dutton said he considered North one of his “co-commanders.” North was fired from his White House post last November, when it was discovered that profits from secret sales of U.S. arms to Iran had been diverted to the rebels.

Adding to the mounds of evidence that indicate how closely North was involved in the contra supply operation, Dutton testified that he once dispatched his secretary, Shirley Napier, to pick up a package in Miami containing $16,000 and to deliver it to North’s White House office. Dutton said he did not know why North needed the cash.

Series of Failures

After a series of failures, Dutton’s operation finally began to work in September, 1986, when it made between 10 and 15 deliveries of up to 185,000 pounds of weapons to rebels in southern Nicaragua. Dutton prepared the photo album detailing the early failures of the operation and its ultimate successes, he said.

At the meeting where he presented the album to North, Dutton said, the White House aide told him: “You know this has been a success. You’ll never get a medal for this, but some day the President will shake your hand and thank you.”

However, only a few weeks later, one of his planes would crash, killing three crew members and stranding a fourth, Eugene Hasenfus, to be taken prisoner by the Sandinistas. Dutton said he never met Reagan.

Dutton credited some CIA personnel with playing a key role in helping his fliers establish an effective system for dropping weapons and ammunition to insurgents in southern Nicaragua.

In particular, Dutton said, the CIA station chief in Costa Rica “was critical to us throughout the operation, and (he) remained involved with us throughout the operation.”

CIA Coordination

The station chief--who is known by the code name Tomas Castillo--went so far as to coordinate schedules for dropping weapons to the rebels, Dutton said. On two other occasions in mid-1986, Castillo and a military adviser persuaded the government of Costa Rica to allow the operation’s planes to refuel there as they returned from dropping supplies to the rebels.

At that time, the agency was restricted by law from providing assistance beyond sharing intelligence and communications with the rebels. Some lawmakers indicated that they believed the CIA activities fell within those ambiguous limits, while other sources on the committee said they clearly violated the intent of the law.

Castillo is scheduled to testify today before the committees in a closed session. Rodriguez will also conclude his public testimony today and Lewis A. Tambs, former U.S. ambassador to Costa Rica, is also scheduled to give public testimony.

Dutton undercut the testimony of Secord, who told the committee four weeks ago that he had no interest in profiting from his involvement in the Iran-contra affair. In particular, Dutton contradicted Secord’s repeated statements that he never contemplated selling the contra supply operation to the CIA.

Sale of the operation to the CIA was one of two options listed in a memorandum that Dutton prepared in the fall of 1986 at Secord’s request. The other was for Secord to continue operating the airlift--at a profit--under the supervision of the CIA. The memo was written at a time when Congress was expected to lift a ban on CIA military assistance to the contras.

Secord had disavowed those options, which he said were conceived entirely by Dutton. “That was Bob Dutton’s view, that was not my view,” he said, insisting that he wanted to give the entire operation to the CIA.

But Dutton testified that the options he listed in the memo were dictated to him by Secord. “The idea was not mine,” he said. “I was given those options.” It was not clear to whom the options were ultimately to be given.

Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes (D-Md.), who questioned Dutton, also noted that the memo suggests the CIA should be charged a minimum of $311,500 if it had been decided that Secord should continue running the operation for the agency. He noted that this price far exceeded the basic monthly cost of $90,000 for running the operation--an indication that Secord intended to make a profit.

“I’m not disagreeing with the fact that there was a built-in amount that would be considered a profit,” Dutton replied. “I think in any situation where a proprietary (company) is hired (by the CIA) that there is an expected profit to be made by them.”

Ultimately, Secord’s operation was neither sold nor given to the CIA. According to earlier testimony, the CIA decided against acquiring the operation after the plane crash in October, 1986, generating unfavorable publicity.

The committee also made public a document prepared by members of Secord’s company, Stanford Technology Trading Group International Inc., at a time when they were considering buying an interest in a failing submachine-gun manufacturing firm. Although Secord insisted that they had no intention of selling these guns to the contras, the document indicates that Stanford was hoping to earn a commission of 25% by selling an estimated 4,000 machine guns at $1,000 apiece to the Nicaraguan resistance--a projected profit of $25,000.

It was Secord’s suspected profiteering that contributed to his quarrel with Rodriguez, who complained to North in June, 1986, that the operation was using unsafe, dilapidated aircraft. Rodriguez showed North a memo written by an airlift pilot, John Piowaty, stating that the planes did not have parachutes or minimum survival gear.

‘Is It Greed?’

“Is it simply greed that drives some of you to drive the rest of us?” Piowaty wrote.

Rather than fix the planes, Secord’s company promoted Piowaty to maintenance director, Rodriguez said. He added that Secord was so stingy that he allowed his pilots to fly dangerous missions in planes equipped with inexpensive Radio Shack radar detectors intended for automobiles.

Meanwhile, Secord’s secret Swiss bank account was swelling with contributions that private donors had made to support the airlift.

“One might wonder whether--if he (Secord) had several million dollars in the bank at the time--what he was doing with aircraft in this condition,” said a committee investigator, who declined to be identified.

Profit on Grenades

In addition, Rodriguez said he was told the contras were being charged $9 each for hand grenades, which were being purchased by Secord in Switzerland for $3 each. He attributed this markup to Thomas Clines, who was helping Secord in the supply operation.

Both former CIA agents, Clines and Rodriguez had been friends, but they had a falling out when Clines’ friend, Edwin P. Wilson, was convicted of illegally shipping munitions to Libya.

When Rodriguez told North that he suspected Clines of overcharging the contras, according to his testimony, the White House official replied that Clines was “a patriot.” With that, Rodriguez walked out of his meeting with North.