Abrams Aide OKd Arms to Contras: Ex-Relief Chief

A former U.S. official said he approved concealing illegal arms shipments to Nicaraguan rebels in cargoes of humanitarian aid because he was ordered to do so by a deputy to Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams, a newspaper reported today.

Robert Duemling, former director of a U.S. government agency that administered $27 million in non-lethal aid to the Nicaraguan contra rebels, said he reluctantly approved at least two mixed loads of arms and humanitarian supplies on instructions from Abrams’ office, the Miami Herald reported.

“I did not want mixed loads but Abrams wanted mixed loads,” said Duemling, who headed the State Department’s Nicaraguan humanitarian assistance program.

Duemling said Abrams’ deputy, James H. Michel, sent a Jan. 6, 1986, memorandum to the humanitarian aid office authorizing the mixed loads, as long as the bulk of the cargo was non-lethal supplies such as food and medicine.

Abrams has consistently denied wrongdoing in connection with aid to the rebels, now under investigation by Special Prosecutor Lawrence E. Walsh. Abrams declined comment to the newspaper on Duemling’s statement.

In June, the 38-year-old assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs told Congressional investigators of the Iran-contra affair that he had misled legislators about his involvement in U.S. aid to the contras. The testimony brought calls in Congress for his resignation.

Former National Security Council aide Lt. Col. Oliver L. North told investigators last month that weapons were aboard the humanitarian aid cargo flights, but North and others involved in the now-defunct humanitarian assistance program did not reveal who actually ordered that arms be included.

During the aid program--which ran from October, 1985, to the summer of 1986--federal law prohibited U.S. officials from supplying arms to the rebels fighting to overthrow Nicaragua’s leftist Sandinista government.