Captured American Says He Is With CIA

MANAGUA, Nicaragua--An American captured after a Contra weapons supply plane was shot down over Nicaragua said yesterday he worked with CIA employees and took part in 10 such flights from Honduras and El Salvador.

Eugene Hasenfus, 45, of Marinette, Wis., said in a nationally broadcast news conference that four of the flights were made from Aguacate air base in Honduras and six from Ilopango air base in El Salvador.

"We would be flying into Honduras, and we would be loading up on small arms and ammunition, and these would be flown to Nicaragua," he said. "These we would drop to the Contras."

Hasenfus said 24 to 26 "company people" assisted the program in El Salvador, including flight crews, maintenance crews and "two Cuban nationalized Americans who worked for the CIA." Hasenfus identified the Cuban-Americans as Max Gomez and Ramon Medina.

Hasenfus said he was offered the job in June by William J. Cooper, identified as the pilot of the aircraft. Cooper was one of three people killed when the aircraft was shot down Sunday by a surface-to-air missile and crashed in southern Nicaragua.

Nicaraguan officials have claimed the supply operation was part of a CIA effort to help the Contras, who have been fighting for four years to overthrow the leftist Sandinista government.

Under restrictions imposed by Congress, the CIA may not aid the Contras.

CIA spokesman Kathy Pherson said the agency could only respond to Hasenfus' remarks by repeating its earlier denials of involvement.

President Reagan and other U.S. officials also have denied that the plane or its crew had ties to the U.S. government.

Hasenfus said he was told he would be paid $3,000 per month plus housing, transportation and expenses for working with the air crews.

He said he was employed by Corporate Air Services, which has the same Miami address as Southern Air Transport, formerly owned by the CIA.

Hasenfus said he left the Marines in 1965 and then "took an employment with a company called Air America. This company worked in Southeast Asia."

Air America was one of the CIA airlines during the Vietnam War.

He said he stopped working for Air America in 1973 and returned to the United States.

Hasenfus said Cooper was a former pilot with Air America. Nicaraguan officials have said they found a Southern Air Transport identification card on Cooper.

The father of Wallace Blaine Sawyer Sr., identified as the co-pilot killed in the crash, said his son once worked for Southern Air Transport.

At yesterday's news conference, Capt. Ricardo Wheelock, chief of intelligence of the Nicaraguan army, was asked if Hasenfus had been treated well since his capture Monday.

"Mr. Hasenfus is being treated under the best possible conditions--for a prisoner of war," Wheelock said.

Nicaraguan officials have said Hasenfus faces up to 30 years in prison, although no charges have been filed.

U.S. Consul-General Donald Tyson met for two hours yesterday with officials at the Nicaraguan Foreign Ministry.

Asked when the Sandinistas would allow U.S. officials to see Hasenfus, Tyson said, "I really don't have anything to say."

Hasenfus' wife, Sally, accompanied U.S. officials to the Foreign Ministry, but did not leave with them. She arrived in Managua on Wednesday night.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Angela Saballos said the bodies of the three men killed in the crash would be returned to their families. One victim has not identified.

Nicaragua sent the United States a note of protest Wednesday and called on the Reagan administration "to abandon its politics of force, threats and intervention in Central American, and accept the path of dialogue."

In Tegucigalpa, Honduras, the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, the largest of the Contra groups, said the men on the plane had worked with them since 1984.