---
title: Adolfo Calero
aliases:
  - Adolfo Calero
  - Adolfo Calero Portocarrero
  - Adolpho Calero
  - Sparkplug
created: 2026-05-17
updated: 2026-10-28
category: "Political Figure"
tags:
  - Person
  - Contras
  - FDN
  - Nicaragua
  - IranContra
  - ContraWar
  - DarkAllianceInvestigation
  - 1980s
summary: "Nicaraguan businessman and political leader of the FDN, the largest Contra army, who handled Saudi and private Contra money and bought arms through Oliver North and Richard Secord from 1984 to 1986."
born: 1931-12-22
died: 2012-06-02
location: "Managua, Nicaragua"
relations:
  - type: head_of
    with: "[[FDN]]"
    start: 1983
    role: "political leader of the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, the largest Contra group; Enrique Bermudez commanded its military side"
    fn: 1
  - type: member_of
    with: "[[United Nicaraguan Opposition]]"
    start: 1985
    role: "one of three directors, with Arturo Cruz and Alfonso Robelo"
    fn: 2
  - type: partner_of
    with: "[[Oliver North]]"
    start: 1984
    end: 1986
    role: "North's chief contact among the Contra leaders during the Boland ban; received traveler's checks, intelligence and Saudi funds through him"
    fn: 3
  - type: partner_of
    with: "[[Richard Secord]]"
    start: 1984-07
    end: 1985-07
    role: "bought arms through Secord and Albert Hakim, transferring $11.3 million from December 1984 to July 1985"
    fn: 2
  - type: participant_in
    with: "[[Iran-Contra Affair]]"
    start: 1984
    end: 1986
    role: "recipient of third-country and private Contra funds; testified for the prosecution at North's 1989 trial"
    fn: 4
  - type: relative_of
    with: "[[Mario Calero]]"
    role: "brother"
    fn: 15
---
Adolfo Calero Portocarrero was a [[Nicaragua|Nicaraguan]] businessman who led the political side of the [[FDN]], the largest [[Contras|Contra]] organization, during the war against the [[Sandinistas]]. The congressional [[Iran-Contra Affair|Iran-Contra]] Committees describe him as an accountant and businessman active in the movement against [[Anastasio Somoza]], who after the 1979 revolution became political coordinator of the Conservative Democratic Party, became an outspoken critic of the Sandinista government and joined the resistance after his office and home were attacked and he was forced into exile.[^1] He had attended the [[University of Notre Dame]] and headed the [[Coca-Cola]] bottling company in [[Managua]], and the [[Associated Press]] reported that he met Sandinista leaders in 1978 to look for common cause against Somoza.[^2] The New York Times editors' cast of characters to the Committees' report describes him as "North's chief contact with the rebels during the two-year ban on U.S. military aid" and as the Contra with "primary responsibility for distributing most private funds received by the Contras."[^3]

The writer [[Gary Webb]] described Calero as a longtime [[Central Intelligence Agency]] agent selected by the CIA in 1983 to lead the political wing of the FDN, and quoted the former FDN director [[Edgar Chamorro]]: "Calero and Bermúdez were our main links with the CIA. They met constantly with the CIA station chief."[^4] Webb wrote that Calero led the political side while [[Enrique Bermudez]] commanded the military side and [[Aristides Sanchez]] managed supplies and logistics; that [[Oliver North]] called Sánchez "Calero's hatchet man"; and that [[Manuel Porro]], arrested in a [[DEA]] operation with associates of [[Norwin Meneses]] and later a commander of the [[Legion of September 15]], became a top aide to Calero and handled some of his Caribbean banking.[^4]

### Saudi money, Secord and the Enterprise

The Independent Counsel's Final Report states that in the fall of 1984 North introduced retired Air Force Major General [[Richard Secord]] to Calero "to assist Calero in the purchase of arms, using the proceeds of a contribution from [[Saudi Arabia]]." The Committees place Secord's first meeting with Calero in July 1984, with the former CIA operative [[Rafael Quintero]], after which Secord left with a weapons list; Secord acted as broker with his partner [[Albert Hakim]].[^5][^6] A December 4, 1984 North memorandum to [[Robert McFarlane]] concerned the introduction of a British security expert, David Walker, to Calero to conduct sabotage against Nicaragua, with efforts to help Calero "defray the cost," and a November 7, 1984 North memorandum described Calero's wish for intelligence to "take out" Soviet-made Hind helicopters, supplied by the CIA national intelligence officer [[Robert Vickers]] and General [[Paul Gorman]].[^7]

From December 1984 through July 1985, according to the Committees, Calero transferred $11.3 million to Secord, which paid for five arms shipments (Phases I through IV and a supplement); Secord spent $9.4 million on the arms, and the shortfall against the total cost, including commissions to Secord, Hakim and [[Thomas Clines]], was made up from other Enterprise funds, including donations from the private fund-raising network.[^6] Calero testified that he was unaware Secord was earning money on the sales and believed he supplied the weapons at cost. Secord testified that his markup "averaged out almost exactly 20 percent"; the Committees found that the commission actually averaged 38 percent of the cost of the arms. A European dealer introduced to Calero by General [[John Singlaub]] quoted AK-47 prices "about half of what we had previously had to pay."[^6] The first sale, of Chinese SA-7 missiles shipped under false [[Guatemala|Guatemalan]] end-user certificates, was the first executed by Secord and Hakim.[^7]

Singlaub had drawn up the weapons list with FDN commander Enrique Bermudez at FDN base camps in March 1985 and taken it to Oliver North; in early May Calero and Singlaub met Richard Secord in North's office about SA-7 missiles, and North and Calero chose Secord for them because he would supply training. In mid-May Calero ordered other weapons through Singlaub's dealer, and the arms arrived in Central America on July 8, 1985, the last order Calero placed with anyone other than Secord; it nearly exhausted the funds in Calero's own accounts.[^8] In deposition Calero named his three main sources as Ron Martin, Secord and Singlaub, said he had "blind trust" in Singlaub, and said Singlaub told him North had told him to stay away because of his high profile. Committee counsel put the first payments for shipments arranged by Singlaub at $2 million on April 26, 1985 and $3.3 million in May, and Calero associated a May 1, 1986 deposit of $48,770 from Chase Panama with "the last Singlaub" purchase.[^9]

In late June 1985 North and Secord met in [[Miami]] with Calero and Bermudez and told them that donors would henceforth pay the suppliers, the Enterprise, directly. Walsh writes that this effectively eliminated Calero "as a money-handler," except for what remained in the Contra account from the Saudi donations; the Committees add that the participants agreed on the need to open a southern front, and that Calero "continued to concentrate his resources on his own organization in the North." A fourth shipment in December 1985 was bought by Calero with funds remaining in his account and delivered to [[El Salvador]] on December 15, 1985, the Enterprise crediting Secord's personal account with $100,800 in profits two days later.[^6][^10]

In February 1985, with McFarlane's approval, North decided to support another Resistance leader with money from the Calero account; by February 27, 1985 "Adolfo [Calero] ha[d] agreed to provide [the] requisite funds in the blind without [the] [Resistance leader] becoming aware of the source," at $6,250 a month, and the money was in the event passed in traveler's checks by Owen and [[Jonathan Miller]] of the [[United States Department of State|State Department]]'s public diplomacy office. North also warned Calero: "Too much is becoming known by too many people. We need to make sure that this new financing does not become known. The Congress must believe that there continues to be an urgent need for funding."[^6]

### Traveler's checks and the private network

Walsh states that "nearly $6 million" in cash and traveler's checks moved through the Iran and Contra operations and that traveler's checks "were purchased by contra leader Adolfo Calero and used as a convenient form of currency." The checks totaled $2,691,950 in 25,637 checks; Calero said his lawyer [[Carlos Morales]] bought the blank checks from BAC International Bank in Miami with funds transferred from the Contras' [[Cayman Islands]] accounts, and that he initially kept a journal of the disbursements but discontinued it, so that the Office of Independent Counsel obtained no record of what the payments were for, only who endorsed them; on 4,982 checks totaling $479,010 the signatures were illegible. North estimated he received about $100,000 in blank checks from Calero, which went into an operational fund used to pay about 40 Contra leaders; Calero said it was necessary for North to make the payments because of "politically sensitive relationships" between Calero and rival faction heads. North cashed 49 checks in his own name totaling $4,940 and 37 checks totaling $2,420 under the alias William P. Good; the jury acquitted him of converting $4,300 of the checks.[^11]

The private fundraisers [[Carl Channell]] and [[Richard Miller]] advised Calero from 1984: Calero's [[Nicaraguan Development Council]] paid $55,000 in retainer fees to Miller's [[International Business Communications]] between September 1984 and May 1985. After the first White House briefing in June 1985 Channell gave Calero a $50,000 check. Of $6,323,020 in Contra-related donations to the [[National Endowment for the Preservation of Liberty]] from June 1985 to November 1986, $3,306,882 went to Contra support at North's direction, including $1,738,000 to the Enterprise's Swiss Lake Resources account and $1,080,000 in transfers to Calero.[^12] The courier [[Robert Owen]], an employee of [[Gray and Company]], met regularly with Calero and other Contra leaders for North; the Committees' account of the [[National Security Council]]'s NHAO humanitarian office records that when [[Robert Duemling]] refused to hire Owen, the three directors of the United Nicaraguan Opposition, Calero, [[Arturo Cruz]] and [[Alfonso Robelo]], wrote Duemling asking for Owen's help.[^6] Owen's April 1, 1985 memorandum to North, in which Calero carries the code name "Sparkplug," also reported that new Southern Front officials included people with "potential involvement with drug running."[^13]

### The arms supermarket

Walsh's chapter on the CIA's senior field officer in Central America, "CIA Subject #1," records that the Miami arms dealer [[Ron Martin]], who had been investigated by the [[Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms]] for years and at one time charged with providing arms illegally to narcotics traffickers, planned with Colonel [[James McCoy]] a stock of weapons in [[Honduras]] from which the Contras could buy "on a cash-and-carry basis." Martin's financing came from [[Enrique DeValle]], the brother of a former [[Panama|Panamanian]] president. CIA field reports of February 1985 learned of it "from Calero and others." On May 13, 1985 North starred as "to do" items "Check w/ Ron Martin 'Supermarket'" and "Secord/Aplicano meeting," and on May 20 noted Calero's assessment: "Supermarket is proceeding." Martin told the Independent Counsel that he used the Danish freighter *Erria*'s manifest to try to convince Calero that Secord was "ripping off" the Contras. In September 1985 Calero, under "increasingly intense pressure" from Bermudez to use the warehouse, asked the CIA about it; the CIA officer wrote that Martin's prices were good and the credit terms excellent, that "there is no advantage for [CIA] to get involved," and the CIA ended up making no recommendation; Calero purchased weapons from the supermarket.[^14]

North's notebook for July 12, 1985, released through a [[National Security Archive]] lawsuit, records a call from Secord discussing a Honduran arms warehouse the Contras planned to buy from, with the note, "14 M to finance [the arms in the warehouse] came from drugs."[^13] The National Security Archive's briefing book states that the Contras did eventually buy the arms with money the administration secretly raised from Saudi Arabia.[^13]

### Mario Calero, Frank Moss and the Kerry Committee

The [[Kerry Committee]]'s report states that the FDN's chief supply officer was Adolfo Calero's brother [[Mario Calero]], and that under a commercial agreement with the pilot [[Frank Moss]], Mario Calero was to receive an ownership interest in Moss's company [[Hondu Carib]], which flew weapons purchased from R.M. Equipment (the firm controlled by Martin and McCoy); Moss, the report says, had been investigated but never indicted for narcotics offenses by ten law enforcement agencies. [[SETCO]], the Honduran company that carried at least a million rounds of ammunition and other FDN supplies from 1983 to 1985, received funds, according to the testimony of Adolfo Calero to the Iran-Contra committees, from the Contra accounts established by North; U.S. law enforcement records, the report says, state that SETCO was established by [[Juan Ramon Matta Ballesteros]]. The report also states that at North's direction Calero paid $10,000 a month to the Costa Rican rancher [[John Hull]] who helped the CIA with Contra supply operations.[^15] North's notebook for August 9, 1985 summarizes a meeting with Owen about a plane used by Mario Calero to transport supplies from [[New Orleans]] to Honduras: "Honduran DC-6 which is being used for runs out of New Orleans is probably being used for drug runs into U.S."[^13] The Kerry Committee's conclusion was that it "did not find evidence that the Contra leadership participated directly in narcotics smuggling," although the FDN "did move Contra funds through a narcotics trafficking enterprise and money laundering operation."[^15]

Webb wrote that Norwin Meneses traveled to Honduras to meet Bermúdez and brought Calero a crossbow as a gesture of esteem; that Calero confirmed the meeting but denied that Meneses or [[Danilo Blandon]] held any official FDN positions; that from 1984 Calero stayed in [[San Francisco]] with the Contra supporters [[Don Sinicco]] and [[Dennis Ainsworth]], that at his request Sinicco founded the Contra support group [[USACA]], and that on June 4, 1984 Ainsworth arranged a reception for Calero at the St. Francis Yacht Club for sixty business leaders, after which Meneses paid for a dinner at Caesar's Italian Restaurant and on June 6 was photographed in Sinicco's kitchen with Calero and FDN officials. Webb also wrote that Calero admitted meeting Meneses at least six times in San Francisco but described them as greetings at large gatherings, and that he told a Costa Rican newspaper in 1986 Meneses was "involved in some illegal things, but I don't know anything."[^4]

### Swiss accounts, testimony and later life

The [[Tower Commission]] records that Attorney General [[Edwin Meese]]'s notes of his November 23, 1986 interview with North show North saying that the [[Israel|Israelis]] handled the diverted money and that he had given them the numbers of three accounts in [[Switzerland]] opened by Calero. The March 1988 indictment charged, in Count Seven, that North's statement to Meese that he had advised Calero to open Swiss accounts to receive the diverted funds was false.[^16][^17]

Calero testified before the Iran-Contra committees in May 1987, and on February 23, 1989 gave detailed prosecution testimony at North's trial about North's role in supplying weapons and other support; on cross-examination he called North a "savior" for whom Nicaraguans should "erect a monument."[^18] The AP obituary reports that in 1987 he said he used to tell North "frankly, everything. I had no reservation," denied knowing the money came from Iranian arms sales, and acknowledged that three former U.S. military officers helped the Contras buy more than $18 million in military equipment while official arms aid was suspended. After the Sandinistas lost the 1990 election he returned to Nicaragua, recovered his confiscated home and worked as a lawyer. He died in Managua on June 2, 2012 of lung problems.[^2]

In January 1985, Webb wrote, Robert McFarlane told Calero that perhaps it was time to think about "cutting both our losses and theirs," as the FDN reached its nadir; the Saudi contribution doubled the following month according to the Final Report.[^4][^10]

### Footnotes

[^1]: Brinkley, Joel, and Stephen Engelberg, eds. *Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair, with the Minority Views*, abridged edition (New York: Times Books/Random House, 1988), Part I, ch. 1, "Introduction: Background on U.S.-Nicaragua Relations," section "The Contras." https://archive.org/details/reportofcongres00unit
[^2]: "Former Nicaragua Contra leader Adolfo Calero dies." Associated Press, June 3, 2012 (Deseret News). https://www.deseret.com/2012/6/3/20416430/former-nicaragua-contra-leader-adolfo-calero-dies/
[^3]: Brinkley and Engelberg, eds., *Report of the Congressional Committees*, "Cast of Characters." https://archive.org/details/reportofcongres00unit
[^4]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998, Cast of Characters; ch. 3, "The brotherhood of military minds"; ch. 9, "He would have had me by the tail"; ch. 10, "Teach a man a craft and he's liable to practice it."
[^5]: Walsh, Lawrence E. *Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters*, vol. I (Washington, D.C.: Division for the Purpose of Appointing Independent Counsels, August 4, 1993), ch. 8, "The Enterprise and Its Finances." https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_08.htm
[^6]: Brinkley and Engelberg, eds., *Report of the Congressional Committees*, chapters on the private operation, the Enterprise and the NHAO. https://archive.org/details/reportofcongres00unit
[^7]: Walsh, *Final Report*, vol. I, ch. 1, "United States v. Robert C. McFarlane," discussion of the North memoranda of November 7 and December 4, 1984. https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_01.htm
[^8]: Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair (H. Rept. 100-433, S. Rept. 100-216), ch. 2, pp. 50-51 (HathiTrust full view, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=txu.059173017837367&seq=74).
[^9]: Deposition of Adolfo Calero, Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair, Appendix B, vol. 3, transcript pp. 84-85, 94-95, 170, 178-179 (Internet Archive item micro_IA41152840_0235).
[^10]: Walsh, *Final Report*, vol. I, ch. 8, sections "Summer 1985: Calero's Purchasing Power Is Removed" and "Phase IV of the Contra Arms Sales." https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_08.htm
[^11]: Walsh, *Final Report*, vol. I, ch. 14, "Other Money Matters: Traveler's Checks and Cash Transactions," citing Calero's North trial testimony of February 23, 1989 and FBI interview of September 22, 1987. https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_14.htm
[^12]: Walsh, *Final Report*, vol. I, ch. 13, "Private Fundraising: The Guilty Pleas of Channell and Miller." https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_13.htm
[^13]: National Security Archive, "The Contras, Cocaine, and Covert Operations," Electronic Briefing Book No. 2, section "Documentation of Official U.S. Knowledge of Drug Trafficking and the Contras" (North notebooks of July 12 and August 9, 1985; Owen memorandum of April 1, 1985). https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB2/index.html
[^14]: Walsh, *Final Report*, vol. I, ch. 21, "CIA Subject #1." https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_21.htm
[^15]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, *Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy*, S. Prt. 100-165 (December 1988), sections on SETCO and Hondu Carib, on John Hull, and the Conclusions. https://archive.org/details/Kerry-Report-Drugs-Contras
[^16]: Tower Commission, *Report of the President's Special Review Board* (February 26, 1987), "Contra Diversion," excerpts. https://archive.org/details/tower-commission-report-excerpts-reagan
[^17]: Walsh, *Final Report*, vol. I, ch. 2, "United States v. Oliver L. North," description of Counts Seven and Eight. https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_02.htm
[^18]: Walsh, *Final Report*, vol. I, ch. 2, trial testimony of Calero (February 23, 1989). https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_02.htm