Postscript : ‘Equivocation, Theatrics’: A Murder Case : A quest to uncover the truth behind the ’89 slayings of six Jesuit priests is roiled in controversy. It pits El Salvador’s Catholics against the U.S. Embassy.

As El Salvador prepares for the first time to try a top army officer for murder, a caustic dispute between an order of the Roman Catholic Church and the American Embassy over important elements of the proceedings convinces many that the full truth behind the country’s most infamous human rights case will never be uncovered.

“The Case,” as it’s popularly called here, is the forthcoming trial of Col. Guillermo Benavides and seven subordinates for the massacre of six Jesuit priests and the priests’ housekeeper and her teen-age daughter on Nov. 16, 1989.

The American Embassy became involved largely because of statements made by Maj. Eric Buckland, a U.S. Army adviser working here at the time of the killings.

The Jesuits, an influential order of the Catholic Church in this devoutly Catholic country, charge that the United States has covered up evidence and hindered a full investigation of the case.

They also allege that U.S. Ambassador William G. Walker, an important figure in this country which has received huge amounts of U.S. aid, is aware that Benavides’ military superiors--and perhaps even President Alfredo Cristiani--knew ahead of time about a plot to kill the Jesuits, even if they had no part in the scheming.

The Jesuits say that Walker and the U.S. State Department base their policies and reputations on support for Cristiani and the military high command and that they therefore cannot afford to have these leaders tied in any way to the murders.

For his part, Walker is reported to believe that the Jesuits have obstructed further investigation by causing delays in the proceedings against Benavides and his fellow defendants and by using attacks on the United States to press the narrow political view that justice can never be served in the El Salvador of today.

Sources close to the ambassador say he believes the Salvadoran Jesuits have acted as they have because, as a matter of political ideology and psychology, they cannot abide any development that would give credibility to the Salvadoran government, its system of justice or Washington’s policy of backing Cristiani in the government’s battle against an 11-year-old rebellion by radical leftist guerrillas.

Under ordinary circumstances in a country where no army officer has ever before been tried for violating human rights, the proceedings against Benavides, expected to begin by mid-November, would have been hailed as great progress for the system of justice.

And as recently as two years ago, ridicule would have been heaped on anyone suggesting, as experts here now do, that an army colonel--one who is a military academy classmate of El Salvador’s top army leaders--might wind up being convicted for killing priests.

But in the words of a European diplomat here: “There isn’t a chance that anyone will accept the outcome of the trial, even if (the defendants) are convicted, as the entire truth. The Americans and the Jesuits have made sure of that.”

Father Michael Czerny, a Czech-born Canadian priest who replaced one of the murdered Jesuits on the faculty of the Jesuits’ University of Central America here, accused the embassy of a “cover-up” through “a combination of calling for a trial and foot-dragging, a combination of equivocation and theatrics.”

Father Jose Maria Tojeira, the Jesuit order’s leader here, recently accused the State Department of “seriously hampering” the local court’s investigation of the case.

Father Charles Beirne, vice rector of the Jesuit university, told the Miami Herald that “the Americans were helping to protect the (Salvadoran army) high command all along. They were afraid the whole house of cards would fall if the investigation went any further.”

For his part, according to a senior diplomat, Walker is convinced that “with greater will on their (the Jesuits’) part, there could have been a trial some months ago.”

And if the trial had begun earlier, the diplomat added, some of the defendants might have reconsidered any decision they have now made to remain silent about any complicity of others. Delays, he said, convince the accused that they will ultimately go free, or at least serve very little time.

At the heart of the Jesuits’ charges against the Americans is the confusing--even bizarre--role of Maj. Buckland.

Sent here as a psychological operations expert, Buckland worked closely for a short time with a key Salvadoran player in the drama, Col. Carlos Armando Aviles.

On Jan. 2, 1990, a month and a half after the murders, Buckland reported to his U.S. superiors that Aviles had told him on Dec. 20 that Col. Benavides was responsible for the deaths of the priests, a statement Aviles later denied to both American and Salvadoran officials.

At that time and during two later interviews with the FBI, Buckland said he knew nothing else that might be related to the killings. But after making his second statement to the FBI, he appended a handwritten note to his statement saying that Aviles had indicated to him before the killings occurred that El Salvador’s top military man, Chief of Staff Rene Emilio Ponce, knew Benavides planned to attack the priests.

Moreover, Buckland said in a sworn statement and again in a lengthy follow-up interview with the FBI that he had accompanied Aviles in late October when Aviles, on orders from Ponce, tried to talk Benavides out of such an operation. The American said he did not take part in the conversation.

Diplomatic and military sources who saw a videotape of the interview say Buckland was confused, erratic and nearly hysterical, sometimes breaking into tears. A reading of his sworn statements and the transcript of the interview, all obtained by The Times, indicates Buckland was very upset, contradictory and sometimes nearly incoherent.

He also was given a lie detector test which he failed, according to an FBI transcript of the examination obtained by The Times.

Six days after the lie detector test, Buckland signed another statement in which he retracted his earlier testimony that Aviles had told him ahead of time that Benavides was planning the murders and that Aviles had been sent by Ponce to try and head off the attack.

Buckland, however, stood by his statement that Aviles had told him Dec. 20 that Benavides was responsible for the killings, an assertion that was found credible by the lie detector test.

Throughout these events, which began Jan. 2 and concluded Jan. 18 with Buckland’s retraction, the American Embassy said nothing to the Salvadoran judge investigating the crimes, although a partial tape of Buckland’s interview with the FBI was shown privately to Cristiani.

It wasn’t until the alleged Aviles role was leaked to reporters and word about Buckland’s various statements began to emerge that the embassy acknowledged in private briefings for reporters that the documents existed.

Not until October, 1990, at the urging of members of Congress, were partial transcripts of Buckland’s statements released, and a full transcript of the FBI interviews were not entered in the court record here until May, 1991.

American officials argue that decisions dealing with the disposition of the material were made in Washington on the basis of the clear unreliability of Buckland and that what seemed to be U.S. delays were actually the result of an inefficient Salvadoran court system.

The Jesuits argue that regardless of the confusion of Buckland’s statements and the results of the lie detector test and Buckland’s retraction, all statements and tape should have been turned over immediately to the court.

Some American officials, while denying any cover-up, say hindsight shows it was a mistake to have held back the Buckland material. And as evidence of good faith, they note that Buckland has not been shielded and that he has twice given sworn statements to the Salvadoran court.