California IN BRIEF : SAN FRANCISCO : Arms Cache Not Secret, Soldier Says

A former Green Beret imprisoned for illegally stockpiling millions of dollars of ammunition in Thailand claims that his superiors approved the illegal cache. In a letter to the San Francisco Examiner, Edward Gleason, once a top sergeant for the 80-man Green Beret unit in Thailand, said high-ranking army officers in the 1st Battalion of the 1st U.S. Special Forces Group gave him permission to collect a stash of bullets and explosives that filled a bunker 250 feet long. Officers have denied knowledge of the stockpile. But Gleason said he repeatedly briefed both his battalion commanders and officers in the U.S. Military Assistance Group headquarters in Bangkok about the stockpile, the paper reported. Gleason, a Vietnam War hero now serving seven years for plotting to kill a Green Beret captain, said he doubts the Army’s claim that the illegal cache was blown up in 1989.