U.S. military officials, private businessmen and mercenaries are among those who kept the contras supplied when support from the U.S. government was forbidden by the Boland Amendment that halted military assistance to the contras until 1986. But several key figures who worked for the contras in El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica and the U.S. during this period did not testify before the Iran-contra committee.  

Florida federal public defender John Mattes, who investigated the resupply network, said the Iran-contra select committee made a mistake in questioning high officials without talking to the footsoldiers of the North Network, the men who handled the gritty underside of the resupply effort.  

"(The select committees) went to the ... heads of the conspiracy, to the John Poindexters and to the Oliver Norths and said, 'Did you do anything wrong, are you guilty of a crime?'" said Mattes. "Any good criminal investigation starts at the ground level and builds the case against the principals by using the footsoldiers. In this situation they should have interviewed the mercenaries and asked them who they were working for."  

While the congressional investigation did not seek to bring criminal charges, it was an event which held the nation's attention throughout most of the summer, and is likely to contribute to the shaping of both foreign policy and regulations on the activities of the CIA and other federal agencies. Critics of the investigation said the field operatives and soldiers of fortune could have offered the committees a sobering insight into the secret dealings of Oliver North and his associates.  

Col. James Steele, former chief U.S. military adviser in El Salvador and senior officer in charge of U.S. military operations based at El Salvador's Ilopango airport, could have revealed significant information about U.S. military involvement in the contra resupply effort.  

Steele was in regular contact with Felix Rodriguez from September 1985 through summer 1986, according to Rodriguez's testimony before the Congressional investigating committees last May. Steele made Rodriguez his "deputy," allowed him to use a military car, and gave him a KL-43, a coding device provided to Steele by North, according to a memo sent to North released by the committees.  

In March 1986 Steele met in Honduras with Rob Owen, North's associate directing the contra resupply operation from bases in Costa Rica. In a memo to North after the meeting, Owen suggested stockpiling weapons for the contras in Costa Rica at "Cincinnati," a code word for the U.S. air base at Ilopango, El Salvador, where Steele was U.S. commander.  

Supply Drops

Steele's role suggests that higher officials in the Pentagon may have known and participated in the resupply effort. "Commander Steele... could have testified as to under whose authority and under what authority he operated in assisting the contras during a time when the Boland amendment was in place," said investigator Mattes.  

Counsels for the select committees deposed Steele April 21, but he was not called to the witness table.  

John Hull, a U.S. citizen whose ranch in northern Costa Rica was used as a base for the contra supply operation, could have told the congressional panels exactly who ran the operation and who authorized it. Hull could also have responded to allegations that those running the supply lines through his ranch were engaged in drug trafficking.  

Hull received $10,000 a month from contra leader Adolfo Calero, according to public testimony by North associate Robert Owen. And in a recent interview with the Washington Times, Hull said he received $800 a month from the CIA to pay for bodyguards during a time the CIA was prohibited from using funds to supply the contras.  

Hull kept the contras fed and prepared them for battle, and could account for every penny given to him by Calero, according to the Wall Street Journal.  

But sworn testimony before Congress indicates that the six airstrips on Hull's 8,000 acre ranch may have served as a base for shipments less benign than humanitarian aid. In July a major narcotics trafficker and former pro-contra activist, George Morales, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Hull is well known to Colombian drug traffickers.  

Hull's ranch was the key base of an operation which sent cocaine to Miami in exchange for arms for the contras, Morales said.  

Gun Smuggling

Last May an Iran-contra select committee team went to San Jose, Costa Rica, but failed to interview Hull. Investigator Thomas Polgar said Hull "evaded us every way he could," although Polgar admitted the investigators only tried to contact Hull by telephone. Asked why the investigators didn't try to interview Hull on his ranch, Polgar said, "It's very far out of San Jose -- 30 miles."  

The investigation of Hull's ranch and the two U.S.-based pro-contra groups stem largely from allegations made by the second category of missing witnesses, the men who fought beside the contras, trained them or loaded planes with weapons for them.  

Jesus Garcia, a Florida corrections officer who has told FBI agents he participated in two arms shipments from Miami to the contras in Costa Rica, could provide the committees with significant information about the apparent ease with which pro-contra organizations shipped weapons out of southern Florida to the contras.  

Garcia was arrested in August 1985 on charges of illegal possession of a machine gun, and immediately told his public defender, Mattes, that the charges would be dropped because he was working with people who had government backing. He also told Mattes about two weapons shipments to the contras in March 1985, and said he had been instructed to buy the machine gun for use in Central America.  

The man who informed the FBI that Garcia had the weapon, Alan Saum, had been staying with Garcia, and after the arrest a briefcase belonging to Saum was found in Garcia's house. The case contained the names and telephone numbers of Hull, Vernon Walters and a national security aide in Vice President George Bush's office. Garcia and Saum asked him to accompany him to Honduras to plan a mission to blow up the Cuban and Soviet embassies in Nicaragua.  

After Garcia was convicted and sentenced to 3 years in December 1985, he decided to talk to reduce his sentence.  

He told federal investigators he met Tom Posey, head of Civilian Military Assistance, a pro-contra group, when he was booking him on a gun charge in Dade County jail. Garcia met with Posey several times, and then Posey asked him to attend a meeting at which Posey and others discussed a plot to assassinate the U.S. ambassador to Costa Rica and blame it on the Sandinistas.  

Peter Glibbery, a mercenary hired by Hull to train contras on his ranch, could tell the select committee about the training operations. Glibbery, who told a Costa Rican court he was arrested after Hull asked him to set up a contra training camp on his ranch, is now in jail for violating Costa Rican neutrality laws and illegal possession of explosives.  

Glibbery has said he heard about the assassination plot from Hull, who told him some Claymore mines were "needed for the embassy job," according to the New Republic. But Glibbery's account of his experience on the Hull ranch has changed twice. During a trial in a suit brought by Hull against the two American journalists Avirgan and Honey, Glibbery refused to discuss Hull's involvement in the assassination plot.  

But Glibbery did tell the Costa Rican court that he had met Hull on March 9, 1985, at a meeting with Posey and some mercenaries. The next day, Glibbery said, he flew to Costa Rica with Hull and the mercenaries. Glibbery said Hull identified himself as the "liaison officer" between the CIA and the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, a contra organization in Honduras.  

Glibbery later told Honey and Avirgan that in April 1987 Hull had threatened to kill him if he didn't repudiate the evidence he had given to U.S. federal investigators. "The CIA killed Steven Carr," Glibbery said Hull told him. Carr, another mercenary who was going to testify in Hull's suit against Avirgan and Honey told reporters later that he was smuggled out of Costa Rica by U.S. embassy personnel the day before the court date. Like Glibbery, Carr had been released on bail after being arrested on Hull property where a contra training camp was being set up.  

Carr later told Honey and Avirgan he returned to the United States via Panama, and was immediately thrown in jail in Naples, Fla., for a previous parole violation. Shortly after Carr was released from jail in November 1986, he was found dead of an apparent cocaine overdose in a Los Angeles parking lot. An autopsy discovered two small unexplainable punctures above one elbow.  

At least one other person, a soldier fighting with the Nicaraguan contras, is reported to have been killed for his knowledge of the contra resupply operation. During their investigation of an assassination attempt against contra leader Eden Pastora, Honey and Avirgan began receiving information from a contra named David.  

According to Costa Rican authorities, David was kidnapped in July 1985 and taken to Hull's ranch, where he was tortured, then murdered.  

Jack Terrell, a mercenary who worked in Honduras with Nicaraguan Miskito Indians who revolted against Sandinista rule, could have provided the committees with information about the CIA's role in supplying the rebels at a time when such activity was against the law.  

In 1985 Terrell, who said he became disillusioned with the contras after he found evidence of drug smuggling, was one of the first mercenaries to speak publicly and to congressional committees about the private aid network for the contras.  

In the trial of Hull's suit against Honey and Aviran, Terrell testified that Hull and Owen asked him to form contra training camps in Costa Rica. During the May 1986 trial Terrell also correctly identified for Costa Rican authorities Amac Galil, who allegedly placed the bomb in the assassination attempt against Pastora which killed eight others, according to the Honey-Avirgan investigation.  

Terrell told the Costa Rican court he saw Galil at a December 1984 meeting at Calero's house in Miami. He also said that Calero and Hull attended a meeting where an assassination plot against Pastora was planned.  

In a June 25, 1986, CBS news program Terrell identified Hull as "the NSC representative to the Costa Rican situation, acting in behalf of Col Oliver North." Terrell also told CBS he knew about mercenaries working for Hull, weapons being smuggled into Costa Rica and assassination plots.  

In July 1986, Terrell was offered money for a business venture by Glenn Robinette, who had been hired in May 1986 by Secord to discredit the Avirgan-Honey lawsuit, according to Terrell. Shortly after that, according to a July 22 FBI report, Robinette met with North to discuss Terrell, and later gave FBI agents documents concerning Terrell.  

North wrote a secret memo to the President in July 1986 calling Terrell a "terrorist threat" under FBI investigation. "It is important to note that Terrell has been a principal witness against supporters of the Nicaraguan resistance both in an outside of the U.S. government," said the memo.  

Terrell, who lives in the Philippines but returns to the U.S. periodically, said he has never been asked to testify.  

How About Hasenfus?

Days after the Oct. 5 downing of the aircraft, Hasenfus told Nicaraguan authorities "there were two Cuban nationalized Americans that worked for the CIA that did most of the coordination of the flights and overseeing all operation projects, transportation... also refueling and...flight plans." Hasenfus identified the two as Felix Rodriguez and Ramon Medina.  

Rodriguez testified before the select committees that he was hired by the Salvadoran air force to work as liaison to the private aid network. Rodriguez also identified Medina as Luis Posada Cariles, who in 1985 escaped from a prison in Venezuela where he was being held in connection with the mid-air bombing of a Cuban airline in 1976. Rodriguez told a senator during his Iran-contra testimony, "I helped him. I am the only one responsible for him to be there, nobody else, and I don't regret what I did, sir."  

Hasenfus might also be able to shed light on papers found in the wrecked plane, including names and telephone numbers of Steele and David Passage, the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in El Salvador.  

Hasenfus was one of the first witnesses to be deposed by the committees, on Jan., 29, 1986, but he was not called back.