The_Info_Web/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Michael Hand.md at 706d8820a2df7ee175df7395cfabc7c1916e51ae - disinfozone/The_Info_Web

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Raw Blame History

Military service

Jonathan Kwitny wrote that Hand completed a one-year course at the New York State Ranger School in 1961, a school attached to Syracuse University, and that in 1962 Hand wrote to his instructor that he was managing a swim and sports school in Palos Verdes Estates, California.² Hand enlisted in the Army in May 1963 and volunteered for the Green Berets.³ He served with the 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), 1st Special Forces. The Military Times Hall of Valor transcribes the Distinguished Service Cross citation (General Orders No. 23, 1966, Headquarters, U.S. Army, Pacific) as presented to Private First Class Michael John Hand for "exceptionally valorous actions on 9 and 10 June 1965 during a 1-hour communist attack on the Special Forces compound at Dong Ha." The transcription continues that he "braved a barrage of fire in an attempt to rescue a wounded comrade, then darted into a building and dragged to safety a wounded American captain and a Seabee," was wounded by shrapnel, "found a machine gun and raked the enemy until the weapon jammed," and, hit by a second blast and ordered to withdraw, volunteered to rescue another wounded man.⁴ Kwitny wrote that, according to the citation, Hand on June 9, 1965 "almost single-handedly held off a fourteen-hour Vietcong attack on the Special Forces compound at Dong Xaoi."² Bob Bottom wrote that, according to contemporary reports, Hand was one of six survivors of a 200-member unit that held out against 1,200 North Vietnamese at Dong Xoai, 135 kilometres north of Saigon.⁵

Jonathan Marshall, writing in Inquiry in November 1980, gave a different account of the decoration. He wrote that Hand won it for rescuing his commanding officer during a savage firefight in the highlands of central Vietnam. Marshall also wrote that Hand studied forestry at Syracuse University, worked briefly as a teacher in Los Angeles, went to Vietnam in 1965, and left in 1968 to settle in Sydney.⁶ Raymond Bonner of ProPublica wrote that Hand studied forestry for a year before enlisting in 1963 and was awarded a Purple Heart, a Silver Star and the Distinguished Service Cross.¹ Kwitny wrote that a resume Hand later submitted to the State Department gave his date of leaving the Army as May 1966 and the next entry as "1966-1967, worked directly for U.S. Government," that banking associates said Hand sometimes referred to undercover activities in Laos during those years, that men who said they had encountered him described him training Montagnards and working closely with the Air America crews that supplied them, and that Hand migrated to Australia in September 1967.²

Cheri Seymour wrote that Ted Shackley, a former station chief in Indo-China, said Hand moved to the clandestine Central Intelligence Agency war in Laos after his first tour in Vietnam.⁷ Seymour also wrote that Hand had special knowledge of intelligence operations in the Golden Triangle.⁷ Keith Schneider of the New York Times wrote in March 1987 that the Australian Joint Task Force on Drug Trafficking report noted that Hand did extensive business with American intelligence officers in Southeast Asia in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and said there was "evidence" that "Hand retained his U.S. intelligence ties through the 1970's and probably the 1980s," evidence that remained classified. Schneider described Hand as a former Army Green Beret and military intelligence officer who served in Laos during the late 1960s with Air America, the CIA-owned airline, in the period when Richard Secord played a large role in directing Air America's operations. Schneider wrote that the report said Ted Shackley and Tom Clines were the two top officers of the CIA's Laotian station in that period, and that Secord, Shackley, Clines and Rafael Quintero were close to Hand.⁸

The Task Force was told by an American witness that Hand was involved in a 1976 shipment of 10 million rounds of ammunition and 3,000 weapons, including rifles and machine guns, that left Boston by way of Africa and was delivered to U.S.-supported forces in Angola. The report also said that Hand and the bank took part in the movement by the United States Navy of a spy ship to Iran in 1976. Both transactions are linked in the report to Edwin Wilson, a former CIA officer who worked for a Navy intelligence group known as Task Force 157.⁸⁹

Nugan Hand Bank

Seymour wrote that Nugan Hand Bank was a primary CIA operation in the Pacific area, that it reportedly laundered profits from drug trafficking in the Golden Triangle, and that these profits financed subversive paramilitary activities in Southeast Asia.⁷

Hand and Nugan entered a partnership in 1970 as investment advisers. Most of their clients were American servicemen whom Hand had met in Vietnam or in Sydney bars, and the pair made money in land and mining speculation during the boom of the early 1970s.⁶ A 1981 Washington News Bureau report printed in the New York Daily News said that Nugan and Hand began in 1969 with a company called Australasian and Pacific Holding, and that four shareholders in the venture gave their business address as Air America.³ Kwitny wrote that the list of thirty-seven shareholders filed with the government in May 1970 showed four with the address "c/o Air America, A.P.O. San Francisco," one with the address "c/o Continental Air Service," and five reachable through the U.S. Agency for International Development.² The Australian Dictionary of Biography says that the two set up the merchant bank Nugan Hand Ltd in 1973 with a nominal paid-up capital of $1 million.¹⁰ Bonner gave the starting capital as $80.¹

The bank operated offices in several countries. The Task Force report, as Schneider summarized it, counted offices and mail drops in 13 countries in two hemispheres during the seven years the bank was in business.⁸ Its senior staff included retired officers. The The Wall Street Journal reported in May 1980 that Edwin Black, a former general, had acted as the company's representative in Hawaii, that retired Navy admiral Earl P. Yates headed the Washington office, and that Donald Beazley was president of U.S. operations.¹¹ The Task Force report, as reported by Kwitny in the Journal in August 1983, described Yates as then president of the Nugan Hand Bank.⁹ Kwitny wrote in his book that Black became president of Nugan Hand, Inc., Hawaii in 1977, and that Yates had been president of the Nugan Hand Bank for nearly three years and helped maintain a Washington office.² According to the Daily News, George Farris, a former Green Beret buddy of Hand, worked in the bank's Washington office.³

William Colby, the former CIA director, confirmed to the Journal that he had done legal work for Nugan and said that this was the extent of their relationship.¹¹ The Daily News reported Colby as saying that Nugan told him he wanted to expand into the United States, and that he had "no idea" how the bank had prospered so rapidly.³

Bernie Houghton, an American who had lived in Sydney since 1967, was described by The Bulletin in June 1984 as the man behind Nugan Hand's Saudi Arabia operations.¹²

Frank Nugan's death and the 1980 disappearance

Nugan was found dead in his car on a lonely road outside Sydney on January 27, 1980, with a bullet wound in his head and a rifle beside the body.¹¹ Australian police described the wound as self-inflicted.³ The coroner's inquest recorded that he died "of the effects of a gunshot wound, self-inflicted and with the intention of taking his own life."¹⁰ A lawyer for two insurance companies that had insured Nugan's life told the inquest that the position of the body showed that he could not have shot himself, as police had assumed.¹¹ A business card for William Colby was among the items found on the body.¹¹ After a reported sighting of Nugan in the United States, his body was exhumed, and a second inquest in March 1981 confirmed the earlier findings on the basis of dental evidence.¹⁰

At the same inquest Hand, by then chairman of the bank, said that Nugan had misappropriated several million dollars and had made loans of $3.3 million to persons and groups whose identity was not known. He also said: "The company is insolvent and unable to pay its debts as they fall due."¹¹ Bonner reported that Hand testified the bank was insolvent and owed investors, large and small, some $50 million.¹ Seymour wrote that the bank collapsed in 1980, $5 billion in debt, and that Hand disappeared.⁷

A Sydney butcher and friend of Hand, who was granted immunity from prosecution in 1981, told Joint Task Force on Drug Trafficking investigators that in late February 1980 he met Bernie Houghton and George Shaw, a director of the bank, on the eighth floor of the bank's headquarters at 55 Macquarie Street, and was told to go to the AMP Centre in Bridge Street. He said that in an office in room 1709 Shaw filled about fifteen boxes with records from the filing cabinets, and that the boxes were moved to a flat in Ultimo and later to a cold store. Hand had told him not to tell him where the records had been moved, because he did not want to know.¹² Kevin Woods, a Task Force investigator, told the butcher that Hand had stated in his Corporate Affairs Commission cross-examination that he helped remove the records.¹²

Hand left Australia in June 1980. The butcher told investigators that Hand's own attempts to obtain an Australian passport in another name had failed, and that the butcher then obtained one in the name of an employee, through a travel agent, after Hand gave him cash for a round-the-world ticket. The passport was issued in the name of Alan Glen Winter.¹² Kwitny wrote that the passport application was lodged on June 5.² The butcher said an American he knew only as "Charlie," white, six foot one, about 180 pounds, with dark hair, probably about 35, came from the United States, provided a false beard, moustache and glasses, and was with Hand when he left for Vancouver by way of Fiji and Honolulu; Hand told him he was flying to Canada because from there he could enter the United States without a visa, and that he left "on the long weekend in June."¹²

Kwitny quoted the Task Force report of March 1983 as saying that "Charlie" was James Oswald Spencer, who was resident in Arizona, "a former member of the U.S. Special Forces" who "like Hand was loaned to the Central Intelligence Agency during the latter half of the 1960s for operations in the Southeast Asian conflict." Kwitny wrote that Spencer arrived in Australia on May 14, 1980 and left on June 14 on the same Fiji-bound flight as Hand, who travelled as Alan Winter; that the FBI interviewed Spencer in November 1982 at the request of the Task Force; that Spencer said he had last seen Hand "several years ago when Hand was in the CIA" and declined other questions; and that the Task Force rejected Spencer's denial and concluded that he was Charlie.² Kwitny reported in the Journal in August 1983 that the report said Hand was smuggled out of Australia by another former CIA operative, Spencer, whom investigators found in Arizona, and that Spencer said Hand "was in the CIA" at the time.⁹ The Nation reported in March 1984 that the Australians had identified Charlie as Spencer, a former Special Forces member "loaned" to the CIA during the Vietnam War, and that Spencer was interviewed by the FBI but refused to talk about his dealings with Hand.¹³ ProPublica wrote in 2015 that Hand fled in June 1980 with the assistance of a former CIA officer, flying to Fiji and then to Canada.¹

The New York Daily News reported on February 13, 1981 that "Australian police have a fugitive warrant out for Hand, who took key bank deposit records with him," and that they wanted him on a conspiracy charge.³ The same report said that the United States Customs Service was investigating the bank's currency transactions and that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had quietly begun investigating the bank in Manila and Honolulu.³

Official investigations

The Commonwealth and New South Wales Joint Task Force on Drug Trafficking produced a report on Nugan Hand in parts. Volume 2 (Part I) is dated June 1982 and Volume 4 (Part II) was completed in March 1983.¹⁴ The Journal reported in November 1982 that a cabinet minister had called the report's material "compelling evidence" that the bank was engaged in widespread criminal activity, and that the report said there were "strong grounds to believe" that bank officers were involved with U.S. and Australian intelligence agencies, but that there was not conclusive proof that the bank was connected to an intelligence operation.¹⁵ Kwitny quoted the report as saying that "if the CIA or any other intelligence organization had intended to use Nugan Hand as a cover for covert operations, it was a clumsy attempt."⁹

On February 24, 1983 the Prime Minister's office announced that the Royal Commission into Drug Trafficking under Mr Justice Donald Stewart would be extended, and that the Commonwealth was discussing terms of reference for an inquiry into Nugan Hand.¹⁶ Special Minister of State Mr Young told the House of Representatives on November 27, 1985 that on March 28, 1983 the terms of reference of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Drug Trafficking had been extended to allow Mr Justice Stewart to inquire into the activities of the Nugan Hand Group; that the first interim report was presented to the government on October 13, 1983 and tabled on December 6, 1983; and that the second was presented on December 13, 1984 and tabled on March 20, 1985.¹⁷ The Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Activities of the Nugan Hand Group issued its final report in 1985.¹⁰ According to the Australian Dictionary of Biography, the Corporate Affairs Commission reported in 1983 that Nugan had been involved in massive international and local fraud and had deliberately falsified the bank's accounts to conceal debt.¹⁰

The Australian Dictionary of Biography says that the 1983 to 1985 royal commission "uncovered little new information."¹⁰ The New York Times reported that the 1985 report disputed some of the Task Force conclusions.⁸ In the same statement Mr Young said the Commission found that the allegations of CIA involvement "lacked substance," that the Royal Commissioner found it inherently implausible that the CIA would have used a group with the shortcomings of Nugan Hand, and that "there was simply no objective evidence that the CIA used or was used by the Nugan Hand group in, or in connection with, any of the group's activities." He said the Commission found "no evidence to support the allegation that the office in Chiang Mai was established to attract deposits from drug producers of the so-called 'Golden Triangle'," concluded that on at least one occasion the group transferred money overseas for collection by a member of the Mr Asia drug syndicate, and noted that evidence could not be obtained from Hand.¹⁷ Bonner wrote that one Australian investigation found links between Hand and the CIA, while another did not.¹

The CIA's public response was a terse "no comment" when asked about the bank in February 1981, according to the Daily News.³ The Nation reported in 1984 that the agency had flatly denied any connection with Nugan Hand but had refused to cooperate with the Australian inquiry.¹³ In a letter to Time in January 1982, John H. Holdridge, Assistant Secretary of State, wrote that George H.W. Bush had confirmed during a visit to Australia that there had been no CIA involvement, and that Frank Church had said his Senate Select Committee on Intelligence found no evidence implicating the agency.¹⁸ A CBS broadcast of September 22, 1982 quoted former bank executive Neil Evans, who had been given immunity from prosecution, as saying: "We were to become the paymasters for the CIA around the world."¹⁹

1980s and later sightings

Brian Toohey reported in The Eye in 1991 that Hand had a postal drop at a suite in northeast Bellevue, Washington, and that his wife was reportedly living with him there.²⁰ Seymour wrote that Michael Riconosciuto, who was living near Tacoma, Washington, when he was arrested in 1991, claimed to have been in direct communication with Hand before and after the disappearance, and to have handled money transfers for Hand when he fled Australia.⁷

In November 2015 Peter Butt, the author of Merchants of Menace, reported that Hand had been living in a small town in Idaho as Michael Jon Fuller, having changed his name only slightly. Butt said Hand had not obtained a new Social Security number.¹ The Idaho company G.M.I. Manufacturing, registered with the Idaho Secretary of State, was described by Butt as manufacturing tactical weapons for U.S. Special Forces, special operations groups and hunters.¹ The Idaho Secretary of State's business records list a G.M.I. Manufacturing, Inc., a general business corporation filed on January 4, 1999 and recorded as dissolved on March 9, 2023; the record names a registered agent and a mailing address in Ucon, Idaho, and records found do not establish whether it is the company Butt described.²¹ ProPublica reported, citing an Australian intelligence document declassified earlier in 2015, that in 1982 Hand was working as a military adviser in the region of Nicaragua where the anti-Sandinista contras were based. The CIA has previously denied any links to Hand.¹ The Australian program 60 Minutes filmed Hand, identified as Fuller, in Idaho Falls, and reported that he refused to answer questions. The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.¹

Footnotes

Bonner, Raymond. "Decades After Disappearing From Australia, a CIA-Linked Fugitive Is Found in Idaho." ProPublica, November 10, 2015 (co-published with The Daily Beast). https://www.propublica.org/article/after-disappearing-from-australia-a-cia-linked-fugitive-found-in-idaho ↩︎
Kwitny, Jonathan. The Crimes of Patriots: A True Tale of Dope, Dirty Money, and the CIA. W.W. Norton, 1987 (Touchstone edition, 1988, pp. 41-42, 46, 54-55, 73, 85, 159, 336-339). ↩︎
"Failed Bank Linked to CIA Ripoffs." New York Daily News, February 13, 1981, Washington News Bureau report. CIA CREST, CIA-RDP90-00806R000200820040-5. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00806r000200820040-5 ↩︎
Military Times Hall of Valor, "Michael Hand," Distinguished Service Cross, Vietnam War, General Orders No. 23 (1966), Headquarters, U.S. Army, Pacific. https://valor.militarytimes.com/recipient/recipient-4866/ ↩︎
Bottom, Bob. Connections 1, excerpt "The Nugan Hand Connection," Sydney Crime Museum. https://sydneycrimemuseum.com/crime-stories/the-nugan-hand-connection/ ↩︎
Marshall, "The Friends of Michael Hand," Inquiry, November 24, 1980. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00552r000302510007-5 ↩︎
Seymour, Cheri. The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal. First Edition. TrineDay, 2010. ↩︎
Schneider, "North's Aides Linked to Australia Study," New York Times, March 8, 1987. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000605740024-7 ↩︎
Kwitny, Jonathan. "Nugan Hand." Wall Street Journal, August 16, 1983. CIA CREST, CIA-RDP90-00552R000302510001-1. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00552r000302510001-1 ↩︎
Farrell, Frank. "Nugan, Francis John (1942-1980)." Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 15, 2000. https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/nugan-francis-john-11266 ↩︎
"An Australian Bank Faces Many Charges in Fiction-Like Case" (subhead "Nugan Hand Chairman Found Dead, Accused of Stealing; CIA Link Is Alleged"). Wall Street Journal, May 1, 1980. CIA CREST, CIA-RDP90-00806R000200820048-7. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00806r000200820048-7 ↩︎
Stannard, Bruce. "Nugan Hand from the Inside." The Bulletin (Sydney), June 5, 1984, pp. 22-27, reproducing the Task Force interviews of Robert Wallace Gehring (May 29, 1981) and Maurice Bernard Houghton (June 9, 1981); reproduced in Cabinet Documents on the Inquiry into the Nugan-Hand Group, Government of the Commonwealth of Australia, Part 1. https://archive.org/details/Nugan-Hand ↩︎
"Dispatches: The Nugan Hand Investigation." The Nation, March 3, 1984. CIA CREST, CIA-RDP90-00806R000200820008-1. https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP90-00806R000200820008-1 ↩︎
New South Wales Joint Task Force on Drug Trafficking, Volume 2 (June 1982) and Volume 4 (March 1983). Dates from the Wellcome Collection catalogue (https://wellcomecollection.org/works/jzzwv5ng) and Schneider, New York Times, March 8, 1987. ↩︎
"Australian Probe Links Nugan Hand to Illegalities." Wall Street Journal, November 12, 1982. CIA CREST, CIA-RDP90-00552R000302510003-9. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00552r000302510003-9 ↩︎
Fraser, Malcolm. Prime Minister's media release, "Royal Commission into Drug Trafficking," February 24, 1983. PM Transcripts, Transcript 6034. https://pmtranscripts.pmc.gov.au/sites/default/files/original/00006034.pdf ↩︎
Young, Michael. Ministerial statement, "Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Activities of the Nugan Hand Group: Report and Ministerial Statement," Parliamentary Debates, House of Representatives, November 27, 1985, pp. 3784-3786. ↩︎
Holdridge, John H. Letter, "Australian Intrigue," Time, January 3, 1982. CIA CREST, CIA-RDP90-00806R000200820017-1. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00806r000200820017-1 ↩︎
CBS, "The Nugan Hand Bank," transcript of the Evening News segment, September 22, 1982, by Gary Shepard. CIA CREST, CIA-RDP90-00552R000201840002-6. https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP90-00552R000201840002-6 ↩︎
Toohey, Brian. "The Eye," 1991. ↩︎
Idaho Secretary of State, business entity search, G.M.I. Manufacturing, Inc. (file 388708). https://sosbiz.idaho.gov/search/business ↩︎

24 KiB Raw Blame History