Ex-Station Chief Contradicts High CIA Official on Contra Aid : Suspended Officer Gave Information for Supply Drops

Suspended CIA station chief Joe Fernandez, in testimony released today, contradicted an assurance given to the House Intelligence Committee last October by the CIA’s chief of covert operations that the agency had not even indirectly aided a private resupply effort for Nicaraguan rebels.

Fernandez’s comments, made in Friday’s closed session of the House and Senate Iran- contra hearings, included his answers to questions by panel members, among them Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.).

At one point, Nunn read from an Oct. 14, 1986, statement in which Clair George, the CIA covert operations chief, told the intelligence panel, “The CIA is not involved directly or indirectly in arranging, directing or facilitating resupply missions coordinated by private individuals in support of the Nicaraguan democratic resistance.”

Fernandez responded: “I would have to disagree with that. My participation did facilitate because it provided the information” needed for delivering supplies by air.

Passages Blacked Out

The 240 pages of testimony were released only after numerous passages were blacked out at the request of the CIA.

In an indication of Reagan Administration interest, the committees noted that a White House counsel was allowed to be present during the closed hearing on Friday.

The suspended station chief told the committees that he felt uncomfortable with his role as a go-between in the resupply operation but was told to keep up his activities in directives from Washington.

Fernandez, also known by his pseudonym of Tomas Castillo, told congressional investigators that he had felt concerned last summer about the “unorthodox” role he was playing in the resupply operation and suggested to Washington another way to coordinate the flights that would provide the CIA more distance from the operation.

Maintained Activity Was Legal

Fernandez was obtaining intelligence information from CIA headquarters in Washington, using a KL-43 encryption device, and relaying it to the rebels and the private network that was resupplying them, an activity he maintained was legal.

He said he sought “to at least take me out of it--I am thinking in very personal terms--take me out of that unorthodox position I found myself in.” The suggestion was made to train a contra official to handle the communications.

But in a cable sent July 12, the agency’s Central American Task Force, run by Alan Fiers, essentially told Fernandez not to change what he was doing. At the time, the House was preparing for a crucial and close vote on whether to provide $100 million in new military aid to the contras.

Fernandez testified that, to his surprise, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Elliott Abrams asked him in October, 1985, about a clandestine Costa Rican airstrip, referred to by the code name of Point West. Abrams also said Fiers knew about the strip.

‘Cause for Surprise’

“When a lower level U.S. official speaks to an official of the rank of Mr. Abrams, a senior foreign policy State Department representative, and he hears about what he thought was an activity being carried out by private Americans with the connotation that there is an official connection, it is cause for surprise,” Fernandez testified.

He said he had avoided any mention of the airstrip to Washington because he thought “headquarters wouldn’t want to have known about it.”

At another point in the testimony, Fernandez quoted former White House aide Oliver L. North as saying at a 1984 meeting with CIA station chiefs that President Reagan himself was interested in John Hull, who owns a ranch in northern Costa Rica and was helping resupply the contras. There was no elaboration on what Reagan may have known about Hull, but Fernandez said CIA Director William J. Casey asked him the following day about Hull.