Re: Compromised: Clinton, Bush and the CIA: How the Presiden
Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2016 11:12 pm
Part 2 of 2
Terry breathed a sigh of relief. At last, he could clear his mind of this troubling issue and get on with his business in Mexico. He closed and securely locked the door of the hangar that now housed an Ultra-Light, a monument he had saved to remind him of his near death, and several file cabinets containing mostly business records. He went from there to a motel and left for Dallas the next day.
In Dallas, he caught up with Fujikawa, who had stayed for other business. He told Terry the meeting with Johnson went without a hitch and he was ready to close the deal. The money was ready, he said, and just waiting for Terry to tell him where and how to deliver it. All was well.
He returned home and told Marr that Cooper was, in fact, going to try and visit Guadalajara for an Air America reunion. Hopefully, he would be bringing another friend of Marr's by the name of John McRainey *, (See chapter end.) and possibly some others. Marr was ecstatic. The resurrection of the "over the hill gang" was in full swing and Marr began immediately making plans.
"That's great news! I'll go down to Chapala Realty tomorrow and attempt to getta hold of the bitch by phone," Marr said referring to the real estate office as telephone central for Americans there and a way to contact his wife. "She's still up in the States visitin' the kids and that's right where I want her to stay. I don't want her down here fuckin' up my party. You're gonna love these guys, Terry."
The first few weeks of August Terry spent shuttling between Guadalajara and Mexico City, visiting potential clients with Fenue. Fierro was working out the final security details on Reed's new airport facility. It was scheduled to be turned over to Maquinaria Internacional, SA, by the first of September, if the attorney could finish the paper work in time.
Terry was learning that Mexico's centralized bureaucracy made legal affairs move at a snail's pace. No document was complete unless it was affixed with enough official-looking seals to obliterate its contents. It seemed bureaucracy was a problem no matter where you lived.
The Reeds' immigration problems had been ironed out. Terry had been given a temporary business visa, which allowed him to do marketing analyses and set in place all the necessary elements for the planned transition to 100 per cent ownership of the Mexican corporation by the U.S. corporation. At that time, this was prohibited by Mexican law.
As far as anyone could tell, he was an American deeply involved in creating a venture to import machinery, something the country desperately needed, and a company for which the government would make an exception to its ownership rule. This was humorous, in a way, because when comparing the list of companies to which this exception had been granted, one would find the likes of Ford Motor Company, Goodyear Rubber Company, Dupont, RCA, and then .... Maquinaria Internacional.
In the third week of August, he received an oral invitation from Marr to attend the official Air America reunion that was to take place at Marr's home ... without the "bitch's" presence.
"I'm goin' out ta the airport to pick up Coop and McRainey today, Fierro says their plane is due in around noon," Marr informed him. "Why don't you come on by the house after dark tonight. We'll down a few and talk about the good old days in 'SEA' (Southeast Asia)."
That night, as Terry walked under the Roman-style stone arch that defined the entrance into Marr's posh subdivision, he was hoping his new Nissan pickup wouldn't be stolen from the shoulder of the highway where he had left it. He was being cautious because Marr was violating a key rule by even inviting Terry to the party, and he did not want his 1985 orange, four-door Mexican-made pickup seen in Marr's neighborhood.
As Terry approached Marr's compound he could hear the VCR blaring away, but this time it was John Wayne's voice coming from the sound track of The Flying Leathernecks. By the sound of the laughter echoing from the den area of Mitch's house, it was clear that the party was in full swing.
Terry rang the claxon and a voice boomed back, "What's the password?"
"Sierra fuckin' Hotel!" *
Terry's response brought Marr quickly to the door and ushered him in. When the door closed behind him, he felt as if he had stepped back through time and walked into the lounge of the Chiroen Hotel, Air America's hangout in Udorn, Thailand. Only the Thai hookers were missing. But the talk had already turned to what carnal adventures might lie ahead in Guadalajara later.
Cooper introduced Terry to John McRainey, another ex-Air America pilot who was flying C-123 air supply missions for former General Richard Secord's "Enterprise" based in El Salvador. The slender, stylishly-dressed McRainey was tanned and fit, giving the outward impression of being a conservative businessman, a banker or maybe a corporate attorney. Also present were two Salvadoran Army officers in civilian clothes and two contract American aircraft maintenance personnel. Terry would learn through conversation that the whole group was shuttling an old, previously mothballed C-123 to El Salvador to join the Contra resupply operation. They had flight-planned their route through Mexico to stay over land, considering the unairworthy condition of the plane, which had not been flown since the mid-70s.
"Cooper's told me all about you. You're one of the guys that was training beaner pilots up in Arkansas for the Agency," McRainey said as he approached, acting openly friendly. "Can't believe you survived it all, considering the level of skill you had to start with. I got involved in a similar situation training Laotian pilots. Wasn't fucking Vietnamization a great program? Let's all toast to the hen-nhats (Vietnamese for cowards) we defended, and to Richard Milhous Fucking Nixon!"
As the tumblers clinked together and slopped portions of their contents onto the floor, Cooper added, "Here's hoping Daniel Ortega butt fucks Henry Kissinger before WE kill him."
Terry looked around him. He realized that what he saw in Marr's den defined the term "Post-Vietnam Stress Syndrome (Its official name is Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome). But this group didn't suffer from the mental condition that the psychiatrists have defined, an illness in which veterans have frequent, stress-related, flashbacks triggered by an ordinary event, that reawakens some wartime experience. Nor was it their inability to control their reactions to these flashbacks which renders them unable at times to cope with the stress of everyday civilian life.
These men, Terry observed, were like himself. They were not the kind to walk into a schoolyard and kill a dozen Oriental children. They were combat veterans locked in time, suspended in an anti-climactic state of not having been allowed to complete the mission for which they were trained. Society had taught them they were males and their mission was to defend their nation and its way of life, if called to do so. They were called, but for all the wrong reasons, and then not given the go-ahead to do what their training had prepared them for. They came home defeated and in many respects could be compared to impotent males who never had the psychological satisfaction of knowing they had fully consummated their "marriage" with their own society.
He found humor laced within the stories and enjoyed the camaraderie of these "men of men," who had risked their lives and were not like Bill Clinton and other modern leaders, men who sat back and debated the morality of it all at Oxford -- after the fact -- and after the shooting had started and the body bags were coming home by the thousands.
These men at Marr's house were known commodities, tried, proven, tested and could be counted on when the going got rough.
But Terry found sadness in a lot of this as well, since their bond was built on mutual failure: Their inability to win and come home victorious. These veterans found it hard to accept that they had been manipulated by the likes of Nixon and Kissinger and that they were, truly, expendable ... and for what?
Detente, they once again concluded. The reason, they each decided in their drunken soliloquies, had to be Nixon's obsession with being the president who "recognized China."
"Nixon couldn't figure out if he wanted to marry and make love to Mao Tse-Tung, or to fuck him to death and shit on his grave," John Cathey had once said. "We need leaders that know what they're doing, where they're going, and define the role the military plays in all this detente shit."
That about summed it up as the Over the Hill Gang toasted Ho Chi-Minh: "To a better man and leader than anybody we had on our side .... 'least he was there to win."
Here was a roomful of intelligent men burying their problems with alcohol and living in the past. Terry hoped he wouldn't end up like the men he was watching. What seemed apparent to him was that these men could share their feelings only with one another. And this made him sad. One thing for sure, he had the comfort of knowing he had a wife he could talk to.
He was jarred from his thoughts by the arrival of Raul Fierro, who couldn't resist any kind of reunion with story-telling combat aviators. Each took the floor in turn to regale the others in one-upmanship, hyperbole and just plain bullshit. As each man spun his tale, Mitch broke out the milk containers with the 1975 tequila, his oldest and best.
As each container was drained, the subject of conversation turned to the current war, the one that had brought them all together. Terry felt a sense of uneasiness because Marr was the only one who had been cleared to know his true role or mission in Mexico. All the while, Terry was hoping the conversation wouldn't turn to Machinery International's role in all of this, especially in front of the "outsiders" present.
Marr asked McRainey: "So how you guys doin' down there? How many sorties a day are ya flyin' and what kind of tonnage are ya puttin' on target?"
"We're not doin' too good, Mitch," McRainey answered. "I'm glad our pay isn't tied to our performance. We're all gettin' older and slower and so's our equipment. It's a hell of an undertaking considering what we've got to work with."
The fact was that during this period in the summer of 1986, the air resupply operation was floundering. Felix Rodriguez would later claim when testifying before a Congressional committee that the Enterprise flew only one successful mission during July and August of that year.
"Goddam Mitch, you ought to be down there flyin' with us," Cooper said. "It's just like old times. They're puttin' pressure on us from Washington to get fully operational by the first of the year and we could use another skilled 123 pilot. I've got my hands full just keepin' this old iron in the air." This was a reference to the antique aircraft being retrieved from "bone yards" in the desert where surplus military aircraft had been stored as well as those being "borrowed" from military museums. Barry Seal's C-123K that had been used in the Sandinista "sting" was but one example of an old Air America war bird conveniently finding its way into civilian hands when the CIA deemed it necessary.
"Yeah, I'd love ta go but the Agency needs me here right now," Marr replied. He lied. He knew why he had not been recruited to fly, and so did most of the people at the party.
"That's not your problem Mitch, we know why you're not flyin' with us," an inebriated McRainey injected, in an obvious reference to Marr's problem with the bottle. The room went silent.
Cooper defused what was about to become an uncomfortable situation by injecting: "Yeah, Mitch, we know you're not flyin' with us because of your wife. Some of us know how to control our women. Can't believe that the Mitch Marr I knew in Asia has now settled down answering to only one woman ... and being pussy-whipped besides!" The roar of drunken laughter broke the tension.
"Pussy-whipped my ass, I'll show ya. Let's go ta Guadalajara and fuck some of them fine Mexican cunts. Line 'em up. I'll show ya," Marr slurred.
Fierro suggested they all leave for Guadalajara where he could arrange for the local DFS (Mexican CIA) commandante to take over a "private club" for the night's entertainment. Terry knew he could not be seen in public with these people and was surely passing up a memorable night, and can now only imagine what it must have been like.
Before leaving they all decided to hoist one more tumbler of Marr's high-octane libation in memory of the men left behind in Southeast Asia. The thought of prisoners of war and the knowledge of what happened to many of them saddened Reed. It angered him that he was silenced by a sworn secrecy statement and couldn't share this classified information with them. *
What a depressing way to end an otherwise interesting night.
One key player in all this was not there. Felix Rodriguez was back in El Salvador creating some mischief. Oliver North would later claim that Rodriguez' ego was getting out of control. At the same time, Rodriguez was aligning himself with the Nicaraguan rebels and trying to freeze out Secord and the others dealing with North. Rodriguez claimed in his book, Shadow Warrior, that the Nicaraguan rebels were being "screwed" by Secord, who was simply trying to sell the whole supply operation to the CIA for a quick profit. [2] This was unquestionably true, but what was Rodriguez' motive in all of this?
Terry believes today that this was part of a power struggle based along racial lines. Rodriguez wanted to control the aerial operations and its assets so that he and his Salvadoran military friends could profit personally from other business ventures that Terry would discover later.
It was more of his trademark smoke, mirrors and "war on communism", used to hide his greed and true motives.
Rodriguez admits he even went so far as to meet with the rebel leadership and act as their champion in the tug-of-war over who really controlled the resupply aircraft and the operation's assets. This clearly was mutinous behavior since Rodriguez was not in charge, nor empowered with the authority to do so. So why was he generating all this turmoil? Was it because he saw himself as HMFIC in the Nicaraguan War? Or was he operating under secret instructions to do so? Did someone want the Enterprises' spooks pushed completely out of the operation so that it could be conducted more as the Vice President saw fit? After all, didn't Rodriguez have the ear of then-Vice President Bush's closest advisor, Donald Gregg? [3]
Rodriguez made the puzzling admission that he persuaded the rebels to put armed guards on the resupply aircraft to keep the Anglos working for the Enterprise from "making off" with them. But where would they have taken them? All this back-stabbing and in-fighting was part of a power struggle that created an environment of an accident waiting to happen. And that's exactly what happened. [4]
But Terry knew none of this in the summer and fall of 1986 in Guadalajara. To him, all looked well and everything was falling into place. By early October, Terry was up and going with Maquinaria Internacional. Even though the Mexican corporation's ownership had not yet been approved by the Mexican government, he was using the license of Fenue's company, Cortec, to get business started.
Things looked so permanent Reed signed a lease on a larger and more family-style home situated directly on the shore of Lake Chapala and the family was preparing to celebrate Duncan's fourth birthday in a very Mexican way. There would be pinatas, mariachi music and authentic Mexican food served by the maid; and the guest list was growing.
On October 4, Janis savored her new-found lifestyle that allowed her the time to bake the birthday cakes depicting the Sesame Street characters, Bert & Ernie. How could the Reeds know they were 24 hours away from disaster?
Since the Air America reunion at Marr's house two months earlier, the "over the hill gang" was getting their act together. By mid-September, the antiquated pilots and their planes were proving they still had "the right stuff." On September 13, 1986, they had managed to put five planes in the air simultaneously and, on one flight alone, 10,000 pounds of supplies had been dropped deep into Nicaragua and into the hands of "freedom fighters" trying to establish a toe-hold in southern Nicaragua.
Bob Dutton, who was reporting to North from the field, said more than 180,000 pounds of supplies had been dropped successfully. But in the Reagan administration's rush to accomplish the aerial delivery effort, there were lapses in security that would soon impact on the Reeds and compromise the Enterprise's operations.
Their lifestyle in Margaritaville would literally come to a crashing halt.
October 5th, 1986, was a cool night on the north shore of Lake Chapala and the Reed family was just preparing for a sweater-weather barbecue when the claxon rang at the compound's front gate.
It was a strangely sober, and somber, Mitch Marr standing outside the iron gate. "I guess you heard the news? Hasens fucked!"
"What do you mean? I don't get it," Terry responded. "And besides, aren't you breaking your own rule by being here? You said we were never to be seen together. And this is a very public location," Terry said, referring to the home's street-side entrance that was in view of the zocalo.
Marr spoke slowly, coherently and very low-key as he went on: "After tonight, nobody may ever give a fuck if we're ever seen together, alive or dead."
A confused Terry just stared at him, wondering what on earth was going on. "What's the matter, Mitch? And what does Hasens fucked mean?"
"His name is Hasenfus. He was 'the kicker' on the plane -- you don't know, do you?" Marr began to realize. "I forgot, you don't have satellite TV..... COOPER'S DEAD! He got shot down."
After a long pause, Marr sighed and continued. "Some commie shit put a heat-seeker up his ass and his 123 went down in flames. He died with his boots on, though. That lucky shit! He always did have all the fun."
While reeling from the shock of the statement about Cooper's plane, Terry began to analyze Marr's comments. It was obvious, based on what he was saying, that what Terry had suspected about Marr was true. He was envious and miserable. Envious of the men still flying under fire and wallowing in his retirement lifestyle that he blotted out with booze. Here he was, wishing he could die in combat with honor like Cooper just had.
After another pause, Marr turned to a briefing mode.
"But I guess this guy named Hasenfus survived the crash, and the commies got him. I thought you knew him, too."
Though Terry didn't know it at that moment, words like Iran-Contra and Irangate were being written by newspaper editors everywhere. As Hasenfus was being pulled out of the jungle on a leash by a Sandinista soldier, political shock waves were beginning to reverberate around the world. Back at the White House, damage control was already under way.
There would be a flurry of questions about why a C-123 military cargo plane registered to a CIA proprietary in Miami had been shot down that day in Nicaragua with gringos and guns aboard.
There were, of course, responses from Washington.
President Ronald Reagan said: "There is no connection with that [between the U.S. and the shootdown] at all." He lied.
Vice President George Bush said: "This man [Hasenfus] is never -- is not working for the United States Government." He lied.
Assistant Secretary of State Elliot Abrams: "Let me repeat flatly that there was no U.S. government involvement in this ... direct, indirect, provision of material financing, whatever you want to call it ... none." He lied.
Eugene Hasenfus, the survivor and now a prisoner in Managua, told it somewhat differently. "I worked for the CIA, who did most of the coordination of these flights." He had a rope around his neck. He told the truth.
The covert supply operation had turned overt, and Oliver North was heading for the shredder.
_______________
Notes:
* From an organizational chart later supplied to the Iran-Contra congressional committees by Retired Air Force General Richard V. Secord depicting the Enterprise's reporting structure, one could find directly under the name of W. Cooper, Manager, C-123K/ C7A/Maule AC, the name of J. McRainey. His title was noted as Operations Director, C-123K/Maule AC, another of the now activated Air America "Over the Hill Gang." [1]
* Sierra Hotel was a term used by pilots in Vietnam. To understand this, you must understand the use of the phonetic alphabet by the military to prevent miscommunication by radio. Each letter has a word such as A for Alpha and Z for Zulu. S is "Sierra" and H is "Hotel". What the pilots must relay to each other during an air strike is the level of destruction of a target, or bomb damage assessment (BDA) reports. When a target was destroyed by a direct hit in Vietnam, the pilots for a time were yelling "Shit Hot" to signify total destruction. The politicians were becoming upset at such ungentlemanly language and that forced the pilots into code talk. "Shit Hot" was refined to "Sierra Hotel."
* Reed kept this information to himself until August 3, 1992. He officially revealed the sacrifice of the POWs during an oral deposition in a Freedom of Information suit: John Cummings vs. Department of Defense, in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, 91-1736-GAG.
1. Testimony of Richard V. Secord, Iran-Contra Hearings, 100-1, p 446.
2. Testimony of Bob Dutton, Iran-Contra Hearings, 100-3, at 219-20.
3. Ibid. 221-22, 275-76.
4. Deposition of Donald Gregg, 5/18/87 at 28-31; Rodriguez testimony, Hearings, 100- 3, 311, 349-50.
Terry breathed a sigh of relief. At last, he could clear his mind of this troubling issue and get on with his business in Mexico. He closed and securely locked the door of the hangar that now housed an Ultra-Light, a monument he had saved to remind him of his near death, and several file cabinets containing mostly business records. He went from there to a motel and left for Dallas the next day.
In Dallas, he caught up with Fujikawa, who had stayed for other business. He told Terry the meeting with Johnson went without a hitch and he was ready to close the deal. The money was ready, he said, and just waiting for Terry to tell him where and how to deliver it. All was well.
He returned home and told Marr that Cooper was, in fact, going to try and visit Guadalajara for an Air America reunion. Hopefully, he would be bringing another friend of Marr's by the name of John McRainey *, (See chapter end.) and possibly some others. Marr was ecstatic. The resurrection of the "over the hill gang" was in full swing and Marr began immediately making plans.
"That's great news! I'll go down to Chapala Realty tomorrow and attempt to getta hold of the bitch by phone," Marr said referring to the real estate office as telephone central for Americans there and a way to contact his wife. "She's still up in the States visitin' the kids and that's right where I want her to stay. I don't want her down here fuckin' up my party. You're gonna love these guys, Terry."
The first few weeks of August Terry spent shuttling between Guadalajara and Mexico City, visiting potential clients with Fenue. Fierro was working out the final security details on Reed's new airport facility. It was scheduled to be turned over to Maquinaria Internacional, SA, by the first of September, if the attorney could finish the paper work in time.
Terry was learning that Mexico's centralized bureaucracy made legal affairs move at a snail's pace. No document was complete unless it was affixed with enough official-looking seals to obliterate its contents. It seemed bureaucracy was a problem no matter where you lived.
The Reeds' immigration problems had been ironed out. Terry had been given a temporary business visa, which allowed him to do marketing analyses and set in place all the necessary elements for the planned transition to 100 per cent ownership of the Mexican corporation by the U.S. corporation. At that time, this was prohibited by Mexican law.
As far as anyone could tell, he was an American deeply involved in creating a venture to import machinery, something the country desperately needed, and a company for which the government would make an exception to its ownership rule. This was humorous, in a way, because when comparing the list of companies to which this exception had been granted, one would find the likes of Ford Motor Company, Goodyear Rubber Company, Dupont, RCA, and then .... Maquinaria Internacional.
In the third week of August, he received an oral invitation from Marr to attend the official Air America reunion that was to take place at Marr's home ... without the "bitch's" presence.
"I'm goin' out ta the airport to pick up Coop and McRainey today, Fierro says their plane is due in around noon," Marr informed him. "Why don't you come on by the house after dark tonight. We'll down a few and talk about the good old days in 'SEA' (Southeast Asia)."
That night, as Terry walked under the Roman-style stone arch that defined the entrance into Marr's posh subdivision, he was hoping his new Nissan pickup wouldn't be stolen from the shoulder of the highway where he had left it. He was being cautious because Marr was violating a key rule by even inviting Terry to the party, and he did not want his 1985 orange, four-door Mexican-made pickup seen in Marr's neighborhood.
As Terry approached Marr's compound he could hear the VCR blaring away, but this time it was John Wayne's voice coming from the sound track of The Flying Leathernecks. By the sound of the laughter echoing from the den area of Mitch's house, it was clear that the party was in full swing.
Terry rang the claxon and a voice boomed back, "What's the password?"
"Sierra fuckin' Hotel!" *
Terry's response brought Marr quickly to the door and ushered him in. When the door closed behind him, he felt as if he had stepped back through time and walked into the lounge of the Chiroen Hotel, Air America's hangout in Udorn, Thailand. Only the Thai hookers were missing. But the talk had already turned to what carnal adventures might lie ahead in Guadalajara later.
Cooper introduced Terry to John McRainey, another ex-Air America pilot who was flying C-123 air supply missions for former General Richard Secord's "Enterprise" based in El Salvador. The slender, stylishly-dressed McRainey was tanned and fit, giving the outward impression of being a conservative businessman, a banker or maybe a corporate attorney. Also present were two Salvadoran Army officers in civilian clothes and two contract American aircraft maintenance personnel. Terry would learn through conversation that the whole group was shuttling an old, previously mothballed C-123 to El Salvador to join the Contra resupply operation. They had flight-planned their route through Mexico to stay over land, considering the unairworthy condition of the plane, which had not been flown since the mid-70s.
"Cooper's told me all about you. You're one of the guys that was training beaner pilots up in Arkansas for the Agency," McRainey said as he approached, acting openly friendly. "Can't believe you survived it all, considering the level of skill you had to start with. I got involved in a similar situation training Laotian pilots. Wasn't fucking Vietnamization a great program? Let's all toast to the hen-nhats (Vietnamese for cowards) we defended, and to Richard Milhous Fucking Nixon!"
As the tumblers clinked together and slopped portions of their contents onto the floor, Cooper added, "Here's hoping Daniel Ortega butt fucks Henry Kissinger before WE kill him."
Kay: Henry Kissinger was a well-known, totally a homosexual. Not even both ways.
Eric: And so his wife is a marriage of cover or convenience?
Kay: Oh, it's just a convenience, yeah. I mean, maybe he's discovered women in his late age. I don't know. But I heard through a very well grounded German that Henry's best friend's father told Henry to stay away from him. And that's why Henry left. The family were embarrassed. And Henry went to Britain where they did this, and then changed his name from Heinz to Henry. And I interviewed a man named Bob, who's an army enlisted person, who told me about Henry in Cambodia. So up through Cambodia, he was actually raping young men. And of course, that experience destroyed the lives of these five young men, according to the source. I mean, he said, he was crying -- and this man was a perfectly wonderful functioning young married man who worked for a newspaper on the Eastern shore, and had three young children -- he went to Vietnam as an enlisted man, was put into Cambodia, which he said it was a lie living there, and then ran into Henry Kissinger. Or Henry Kissinger ran into him, and did certain things to him. Invited him into his tent with some other men. It was horrible. But he said, "It's wartime," and so forth. But he said, "You know, I could have taken it mentally if it had been a bunk-mate or something, but when it's someone like Henry Kissinger who does it to you, you're ruined." He said he came back home -- Oh! And this is interesting, and I really believe that Bob's right, he said Kissinger said to him, "If you ever tell anybody, if you ever mention to a soul, it's the end of you. Don't you ever tell anybody." Well, when Bob got back, he went to a special hospital, and they were going to keep him locked up forever.
-- Mrs. Kay Griggs on How the Government Works, Interview with Eric Hufschmid
Terry looked around him. He realized that what he saw in Marr's den defined the term "Post-Vietnam Stress Syndrome (Its official name is Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome). But this group didn't suffer from the mental condition that the psychiatrists have defined, an illness in which veterans have frequent, stress-related, flashbacks triggered by an ordinary event, that reawakens some wartime experience. Nor was it their inability to control their reactions to these flashbacks which renders them unable at times to cope with the stress of everyday civilian life.
These men, Terry observed, were like himself. They were not the kind to walk into a schoolyard and kill a dozen Oriental children. They were combat veterans locked in time, suspended in an anti-climactic state of not having been allowed to complete the mission for which they were trained. Society had taught them they were males and their mission was to defend their nation and its way of life, if called to do so. They were called, but for all the wrong reasons, and then not given the go-ahead to do what their training had prepared them for. They came home defeated and in many respects could be compared to impotent males who never had the psychological satisfaction of knowing they had fully consummated their "marriage" with their own society.
He found humor laced within the stories and enjoyed the camaraderie of these "men of men," who had risked their lives and were not like Bill Clinton and other modern leaders, men who sat back and debated the morality of it all at Oxford -- after the fact -- and after the shooting had started and the body bags were coming home by the thousands.
These men at Marr's house were known commodities, tried, proven, tested and could be counted on when the going got rough.
But Terry found sadness in a lot of this as well, since their bond was built on mutual failure: Their inability to win and come home victorious. These veterans found it hard to accept that they had been manipulated by the likes of Nixon and Kissinger and that they were, truly, expendable ... and for what?
Detente, they once again concluded. The reason, they each decided in their drunken soliloquies, had to be Nixon's obsession with being the president who "recognized China."
"Nixon couldn't figure out if he wanted to marry and make love to Mao Tse-Tung, or to fuck him to death and shit on his grave," John Cathey had once said. "We need leaders that know what they're doing, where they're going, and define the role the military plays in all this detente shit."
That about summed it up as the Over the Hill Gang toasted Ho Chi-Minh: "To a better man and leader than anybody we had on our side .... 'least he was there to win."
[Captain Mandrake] Excuse me, sir. Something rather interesting has just cropped up. Listen to that. Music. Civilian broadcasting. I think the Pentagon has given us an exercise to test our readiness. I think it's taking things too far. Our fellows will be inside Russian radar cover in 20 minutes. Listen to that. Chock-a-block full of stations, all churning it out.
[General Jack Ripper] Mandrake?
[Captain Mandrake] Yes, sir?
[General Jack Ripper] I thought I issued instructions for all radios to be impounded.
[Captain Mandrake] You did, and I was in the process of impounding this when I switched it on. I thought, our fellows hitting Russian radar, dropping all their stuff, I'd better tell you. Because if they do, it'll cause a bit of a stink.
[General Jack Ripper] Group captain, the officer-exchange program does not give you any special prerogatives to question my orders.
[Captain Mandrake] I realize that, sir, but I thought you'd be rather pleased to hear the news. I mean, after all -- Well, let's face it. We don't want to start a nuclear war unless we really have to, do we?
[General Jack Ripper] Please sit down. And turn that thing off.
[Captain Mandrake] Yes, sir. What about the planes? Surely we must issue the recall code immediately.
[General Jack Ripper] Group captain, the planes are not gonna be recalled. My attack orders have been issued, and the orders stand.
[Captain Mandrake] If you'll excuse me saying so, sir, that would be, to my way of thinking rather an odd way of looking at it. If a Russian attack was in progress , we would certainly not be hearing civilian broadcasting.
[General Jack Ripper] Are you certain of that?
[Captain Mandrake] I'm absolutely positive.
[General Jack Ripper] And what if it is true?
[Captain Mandrake] I'm afraid I'm still not with you, sir, because, I mean if a Russian attack was not in progress, then your use of Plan R -- in fact, your orders to the entire wing, I would say that there was something dreadfully wrong somewhere.
[General Jack Ripper] Why don't you take it easy, group captain. Please make me a drink of grain alcohol and rainwater, and help yourself to whatever you'd like.
[Captain Mandrake] General Ripper, sir, as an officer in Her Majesty's Air Force, it is my clear duty under the present circumstances, to issue the recall code upon my own authority and bring back the wing. If you'll excuse me, sir. Sir, I must ask you for the key and the recall code. Have you got them handy?
[General Jack Ripper] I told you to take it easy, group captain. There's nothing anybody can do about this now. I'm the only person who knows the code group.
[Captain Mandrake] Then I must insist, sir, that you give them to me! Do I take it, sir, you are threatening a brother officer with a gun?
[General Jack Ripper] Mandrake, I suppose it never occurred to you that while we're chatting here so enjoyably a decision is being made by the president and the joint chiefs in the war room at the Pentagon. And when they realize there is no possibility of recalling the wing, there will be only one course of action open: Total commitment. Mandrake, do you recall what Clemenceau once said about war?
[Captain Mandrake] No, I don't think I do, sir. No.
[General Jack Ripper] He said war was too important to be left to the generals. When he said that 50 years ago, he might have been right. But today, war is too important to be left to politicians. They have neither the time, the training. nor the inclination for strategic thought. I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion, and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.
-- Dr. Strangelove, directed by Stanley Kubrick, starring Peter Sellers and George C. Scott
Here was a roomful of intelligent men burying their problems with alcohol and living in the past. Terry hoped he wouldn't end up like the men he was watching. What seemed apparent to him was that these men could share their feelings only with one another. And this made him sad. One thing for sure, he had the comfort of knowing he had a wife he could talk to.
He was jarred from his thoughts by the arrival of Raul Fierro, who couldn't resist any kind of reunion with story-telling combat aviators. Each took the floor in turn to regale the others in one-upmanship, hyperbole and just plain bullshit. As each man spun his tale, Mitch broke out the milk containers with the 1975 tequila, his oldest and best.
As each container was drained, the subject of conversation turned to the current war, the one that had brought them all together. Terry felt a sense of uneasiness because Marr was the only one who had been cleared to know his true role or mission in Mexico. All the while, Terry was hoping the conversation wouldn't turn to Machinery International's role in all of this, especially in front of the "outsiders" present.
Marr asked McRainey: "So how you guys doin' down there? How many sorties a day are ya flyin' and what kind of tonnage are ya puttin' on target?"
"We're not doin' too good, Mitch," McRainey answered. "I'm glad our pay isn't tied to our performance. We're all gettin' older and slower and so's our equipment. It's a hell of an undertaking considering what we've got to work with."
The fact was that during this period in the summer of 1986, the air resupply operation was floundering. Felix Rodriguez would later claim when testifying before a Congressional committee that the Enterprise flew only one successful mission during July and August of that year.
"Goddam Mitch, you ought to be down there flyin' with us," Cooper said. "It's just like old times. They're puttin' pressure on us from Washington to get fully operational by the first of the year and we could use another skilled 123 pilot. I've got my hands full just keepin' this old iron in the air." This was a reference to the antique aircraft being retrieved from "bone yards" in the desert where surplus military aircraft had been stored as well as those being "borrowed" from military museums. Barry Seal's C-123K that had been used in the Sandinista "sting" was but one example of an old Air America war bird conveniently finding its way into civilian hands when the CIA deemed it necessary.
"Yeah, I'd love ta go but the Agency needs me here right now," Marr replied. He lied. He knew why he had not been recruited to fly, and so did most of the people at the party.
"That's not your problem Mitch, we know why you're not flyin' with us," an inebriated McRainey injected, in an obvious reference to Marr's problem with the bottle. The room went silent.
Cooper defused what was about to become an uncomfortable situation by injecting: "Yeah, Mitch, we know you're not flyin' with us because of your wife. Some of us know how to control our women. Can't believe that the Mitch Marr I knew in Asia has now settled down answering to only one woman ... and being pussy-whipped besides!" The roar of drunken laughter broke the tension.
"Pussy-whipped my ass, I'll show ya. Let's go ta Guadalajara and fuck some of them fine Mexican cunts. Line 'em up. I'll show ya," Marr slurred.
Fierro suggested they all leave for Guadalajara where he could arrange for the local DFS (Mexican CIA) commandante to take over a "private club" for the night's entertainment. Terry knew he could not be seen in public with these people and was surely passing up a memorable night, and can now only imagine what it must have been like.
Before leaving they all decided to hoist one more tumbler of Marr's high-octane libation in memory of the men left behind in Southeast Asia. The thought of prisoners of war and the knowledge of what happened to many of them saddened Reed. It angered him that he was silenced by a sworn secrecy statement and couldn't share this classified information with them. *
What a depressing way to end an otherwise interesting night.
One key player in all this was not there. Felix Rodriguez was back in El Salvador creating some mischief. Oliver North would later claim that Rodriguez' ego was getting out of control. At the same time, Rodriguez was aligning himself with the Nicaraguan rebels and trying to freeze out Secord and the others dealing with North. Rodriguez claimed in his book, Shadow Warrior, that the Nicaraguan rebels were being "screwed" by Secord, who was simply trying to sell the whole supply operation to the CIA for a quick profit. [2] This was unquestionably true, but what was Rodriguez' motive in all of this?
Terry believes today that this was part of a power struggle based along racial lines. Rodriguez wanted to control the aerial operations and its assets so that he and his Salvadoran military friends could profit personally from other business ventures that Terry would discover later.
It was more of his trademark smoke, mirrors and "war on communism", used to hide his greed and true motives.
Rodriguez admits he even went so far as to meet with the rebel leadership and act as their champion in the tug-of-war over who really controlled the resupply aircraft and the operation's assets. This clearly was mutinous behavior since Rodriguez was not in charge, nor empowered with the authority to do so. So why was he generating all this turmoil? Was it because he saw himself as HMFIC in the Nicaraguan War? Or was he operating under secret instructions to do so? Did someone want the Enterprises' spooks pushed completely out of the operation so that it could be conducted more as the Vice President saw fit? After all, didn't Rodriguez have the ear of then-Vice President Bush's closest advisor, Donald Gregg? [3]
Rodriguez made the puzzling admission that he persuaded the rebels to put armed guards on the resupply aircraft to keep the Anglos working for the Enterprise from "making off" with them. But where would they have taken them? All this back-stabbing and in-fighting was part of a power struggle that created an environment of an accident waiting to happen. And that's exactly what happened. [4]
But Terry knew none of this in the summer and fall of 1986 in Guadalajara. To him, all looked well and everything was falling into place. By early October, Terry was up and going with Maquinaria Internacional. Even though the Mexican corporation's ownership had not yet been approved by the Mexican government, he was using the license of Fenue's company, Cortec, to get business started.
Things looked so permanent Reed signed a lease on a larger and more family-style home situated directly on the shore of Lake Chapala and the family was preparing to celebrate Duncan's fourth birthday in a very Mexican way. There would be pinatas, mariachi music and authentic Mexican food served by the maid; and the guest list was growing.
On October 4, Janis savored her new-found lifestyle that allowed her the time to bake the birthday cakes depicting the Sesame Street characters, Bert & Ernie. How could the Reeds know they were 24 hours away from disaster?
Since the Air America reunion at Marr's house two months earlier, the "over the hill gang" was getting their act together. By mid-September, the antiquated pilots and their planes were proving they still had "the right stuff." On September 13, 1986, they had managed to put five planes in the air simultaneously and, on one flight alone, 10,000 pounds of supplies had been dropped deep into Nicaragua and into the hands of "freedom fighters" trying to establish a toe-hold in southern Nicaragua.
Bob Dutton, who was reporting to North from the field, said more than 180,000 pounds of supplies had been dropped successfully. But in the Reagan administration's rush to accomplish the aerial delivery effort, there were lapses in security that would soon impact on the Reeds and compromise the Enterprise's operations.
Their lifestyle in Margaritaville would literally come to a crashing halt.
October 5th, 1986, was a cool night on the north shore of Lake Chapala and the Reed family was just preparing for a sweater-weather barbecue when the claxon rang at the compound's front gate.
It was a strangely sober, and somber, Mitch Marr standing outside the iron gate. "I guess you heard the news? Hasens fucked!"
"What do you mean? I don't get it," Terry responded. "And besides, aren't you breaking your own rule by being here? You said we were never to be seen together. And this is a very public location," Terry said, referring to the home's street-side entrance that was in view of the zocalo.
Marr spoke slowly, coherently and very low-key as he went on: "After tonight, nobody may ever give a fuck if we're ever seen together, alive or dead."
A confused Terry just stared at him, wondering what on earth was going on. "What's the matter, Mitch? And what does Hasens fucked mean?"
"His name is Hasenfus. He was 'the kicker' on the plane -- you don't know, do you?" Marr began to realize. "I forgot, you don't have satellite TV..... COOPER'S DEAD! He got shot down."
After a long pause, Marr sighed and continued. "Some commie shit put a heat-seeker up his ass and his 123 went down in flames. He died with his boots on, though. That lucky shit! He always did have all the fun."
While reeling from the shock of the statement about Cooper's plane, Terry began to analyze Marr's comments. It was obvious, based on what he was saying, that what Terry had suspected about Marr was true. He was envious and miserable. Envious of the men still flying under fire and wallowing in his retirement lifestyle that he blotted out with booze. Here he was, wishing he could die in combat with honor like Cooper just had.
After another pause, Marr turned to a briefing mode.
"But I guess this guy named Hasenfus survived the crash, and the commies got him. I thought you knew him, too."
Though Terry didn't know it at that moment, words like Iran-Contra and Irangate were being written by newspaper editors everywhere. As Hasenfus was being pulled out of the jungle on a leash by a Sandinista soldier, political shock waves were beginning to reverberate around the world. Back at the White House, damage control was already under way.
There would be a flurry of questions about why a C-123 military cargo plane registered to a CIA proprietary in Miami had been shot down that day in Nicaragua with gringos and guns aboard.
There were, of course, responses from Washington.
President Ronald Reagan said: "There is no connection with that [between the U.S. and the shootdown] at all." He lied.
Vice President George Bush said: "This man [Hasenfus] is never -- is not working for the United States Government." He lied.
Assistant Secretary of State Elliot Abrams: "Let me repeat flatly that there was no U.S. government involvement in this ... direct, indirect, provision of material financing, whatever you want to call it ... none." He lied.
Eugene Hasenfus, the survivor and now a prisoner in Managua, told it somewhat differently. "I worked for the CIA, who did most of the coordination of these flights." He had a rope around his neck. He told the truth.
The covert supply operation had turned overt, and Oliver North was heading for the shredder.
_______________
Notes:
* From an organizational chart later supplied to the Iran-Contra congressional committees by Retired Air Force General Richard V. Secord depicting the Enterprise's reporting structure, one could find directly under the name of W. Cooper, Manager, C-123K/ C7A/Maule AC, the name of J. McRainey. His title was noted as Operations Director, C-123K/Maule AC, another of the now activated Air America "Over the Hill Gang." [1]
* Sierra Hotel was a term used by pilots in Vietnam. To understand this, you must understand the use of the phonetic alphabet by the military to prevent miscommunication by radio. Each letter has a word such as A for Alpha and Z for Zulu. S is "Sierra" and H is "Hotel". What the pilots must relay to each other during an air strike is the level of destruction of a target, or bomb damage assessment (BDA) reports. When a target was destroyed by a direct hit in Vietnam, the pilots for a time were yelling "Shit Hot" to signify total destruction. The politicians were becoming upset at such ungentlemanly language and that forced the pilots into code talk. "Shit Hot" was refined to "Sierra Hotel."
* Reed kept this information to himself until August 3, 1992. He officially revealed the sacrifice of the POWs during an oral deposition in a Freedom of Information suit: John Cummings vs. Department of Defense, in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, 91-1736-GAG.
1. Testimony of Richard V. Secord, Iran-Contra Hearings, 100-1, p 446.
2. Testimony of Bob Dutton, Iran-Contra Hearings, 100-3, at 219-20.
3. Ibid. 221-22, 275-76.
4. Deposition of Donald Gregg, 5/18/87 at 28-31; Rodriguez testimony, Hearings, 100- 3, 311, 349-50.