vault backup: 2026-10-14 15:45:14

10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Eugene Hasenfus.md

@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ aliases:
   - Gene Hasenfus
   - Eugene H. Hasenfus
 created: 2024-04-25
-updated: 2026-10-05
+updated: 2026-10-14
 category: "Intelligence & Government"
 tags:
   - Person
@@ -64,17 +64,20 @@ The identity of the airframe is recorded differently by different sources. A DEA
 
 ### Press conference and the names Gomez and Medina
 
-On October 9, 1986 Hasenfus said in [[Managua]] that he had made ten flights supplying the contras, four from [[Aguacate]] air base in [[Honduras]] and six from [[Ilopango Airbase]] in El Salvador, that 24 to 26 "company people" assisted in El Salvador including "two Cuban nationalized Americans that worked for the CIA," and that he was to be paid $3,000 a month plus housing. He named "Max Gomez" and "Ramon Medina" as overseers of housing, transportation, refueling and flight plans.[^10][^7] Gomez was Felix Rodriguez and Medina was [[Luis Posada Carriles]].[^6] The independent counsel's chapter on Clair George records that Hasenfus had publicly identified Gomez, and that [[Clair George]] was charged with falsely denying before Congress that he knew Gomez's true identity.[^12] [[Gary Webb]] wrote in *Dark Alliance* that [[Alan Fiers]], then in charge of the CIA's Contra program, said the [[Sandinistas]] found among the crew's effects "all sorts of pocket litter that identified and connected them back to Ilopango," including cards of [[NHAO]] employees and flight logs.[^13]
+On October 9, 1986 Hasenfus said in [[Managua]] that he had made ten flights supplying the contras, four from [[Aguacate]] air base in [[Honduras]] and six from [[Ilopango Airbase]] in El Salvador, that 24 to 26 "company people" assisted in El Salvador including "two Cuban nationalized Americans that worked for the CIA," and that he was to be paid $3,000 a month plus housing. He named "Max Gomez" and "Ramon Medina" as overseers of housing, transportation, refueling and flight plans.[^7][^10] Gomez was Felix Rodriguez and Medina was [[Luis Posada Carriles]].[^6] The independent counsel's chapter on Clair George records that Hasenfus had publicly identified Gomez, and that [[Clair George]] was charged with falsely denying before Congress that he knew Gomez's true identity.[^12] [[Gary Webb]] wrote in *Dark Alliance* that [[Alan Fiers]], then in charge of the CIA's Contra program, said the [[Sandinistas]] found among the crew's effects "all sorts of pocket litter that identified and connected them back to Ilopango," including cards of [[NHAO]] employees and flight logs.[^13]
 
 ### The CIA and State statements
 
 On October 10, 1986 the CIA and the [[State Department]] briefed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for three hours. Assistant Secretary of State [[Elliott Abrams]] stated that "there is no U.S. Government involvement" in the supply system; Clair George and Fiers gave a statement denying a CIA connection with the C-123 or its crew; and the briefing record states that "no one knows why Mr. Hasenfus has claimed that he worked for CIA," that "he might have been exposed to pressure by the Sandinistas," or that he "might have been hired under 'false-flag' circumstances."[^3] The same day Fiers briefed House intelligence committee staff and described Rodriguez as a twenty-year Agency veteran who retired in 1978.[^14] In *Dark Alliance* Webb wrote that administration officials sent false press advisories, booked spokesmen on talk shows and sent CIA officials to give false testimony to congressional committees, and that this delayed congressional investigation long enough to pass the $100 million aid bill.[^13]
 
+On October 8, 1986 Elliott Abrams chaired a Restricted Interagency Group meeting on the downed aircraft. North did not attend. The group discussed demands for access to Hasenfus, Salvadoran denials of contra support, press guidance and legal counsel for Hasenfus. It was agreed that Abrams would ask North to have the contra umbrella organization assume responsibility for the flight.[^15] On October 15, 1986 Abrams told a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee that no one in the U.S. government knew who organized and paid for the flight. Asked whether anyone in the government did know, he said: "I wouldn't separate myself from the Government. We don't know."[^16] The independent counsel's report concluded that "Abrams was not truthful with the congressional committees."[^17]
+
 ### Trial and release
 
 Hasenfus was tried in Nicaragua and sentenced to 30 years in prison on charges related to delivering arms to the contras; he was pardoned a month later by President [[Daniel Ortega]].[^1] The independent counsel found that [[Oliver North]]'s notebooks of October 8 to 15, 1986 record conversations with [[Richard Secord]] and others about getting a lawyer for Hasenfus and about death benefits and funerals for the dead pilots; the Enterprise's manager [[Edward de Garay]] and North's friend [[William Haskell]] went to [[Panama]] to find a lawyer, without success, and Secord and [[Albert Hakim]] had [[Willard Zucker]] hire a [[Switzerland|Swiss]] lawyer who could not reach Nicaraguan officials. After the shootdown Secord told [[Rafael Quintero]] to set aside a $75,000 check and a $50,000 check to establish a defense fund; Quintero endorsed the first with a forged signature and sent both to a [[Bahamas]] bank. In December 1986 the Enterprise's air-support manager John Piowaty carried $6,000 in cash from Southern Air Transport in Miami to Hasenfus's wife Sally, two months of his salary, and the Enterprise arranged $3,000 in cash for Sawyer's burial at a funeral home in [[Magnolia, Arkansas]].[^6]
 
 ### Footnotes
+
 [^1]: Associated Press, "Key figure in the 1980s Iran-Contra affair dies," December 2025 (citing the Hansen-Onion-Martell Funeral Home obituary), as printed by the *Tribune Chronicle*. https://www.tribtoday.com/obituaries/2025/12/key-figure-in-the-1980s-iran-contra-affair-dies/
 [^2]: Alfonso Chardy, "Brother says captured kin once worked on CIA airline," *The Philadelphia Inquirer*, October 8, 1986 (CIA Reading Room, CIA-RDP91-00587R000200880028-6). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp91-00587r000200880028-6
 [^3]: CIA Office of Congressional Affairs, memorandum for the record, "Briefing on the C-123 Crash in Nicaragua: Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 10 October," OCA 86-3575, October 10, 1986, paragraphs 7, 9, 14 and 16. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-00788192
@@ -89,3 +92,6 @@ Hasenfus was tried in Nicaragua and sentenced to 30 years in prison on charges r
 [^12]: Walsh, chapter 17, "United States v. Clair E. George." https://irp.fas.org/offdocs/walsh/chap_17.htm
 [^13]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998, chapter 18, "We bust our ass and the government's involved."
 [^14]: CIA Office of Congressional Affairs, memorandum for the record, "HPSCI Staff Briefing on Crash of C-123 in Nicaragua," OCA 86-3489, October 16, 1986, paragraph 12. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90b01390r000400550034-9
+[^15]: Walsh, Lawrence E. *Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters*, vol. I, ch. 25, "United States v. Elliott Abrams," section "The Hasenfus Shootdown" (RIG meeting of October 8, 1986), citing PROFs note from Cannistraro to Poindexter, October 8, 1986, and Fiers FBI 302, July 22, 1991. https://irp.fas.org/offdocs/walsh/chap_25.htm
+[^16]: Walsh, Lawrence E. *Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters*, vol. I, ch. 25, "United States v. Elliott Abrams," n. 75 (House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs testimony, October 15, 1986, pp. 31 to 33). https://irp.fas.org/offdocs/walsh/chap_25.htm
+[^17]: Walsh, Lawrence E. *Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters*, vol. I, ch. 25, "United States v. Elliott Abrams," closing section on the October 1986 testimony. https://irp.fas.org/offdocs/walsh/chap_25.htm