Eugene H. Hasenfus (born January 22, 1941)
is a former
United States Marine
The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through combi ...
who helped fly weapons shipments on behalf of the U.S. government to the right wing rebel
Contras
The Contras were the various U.S.-backed and funded right-wing rebel groups that were active from 1979 to 1990 in opposition to the Marxist Sandinista Junta of National Reconstruction Government in Nicaragua, which came to power in 1979 fol ...
in Nicaragua. The sole survivor after his plane was shot down by the Nicaraguan government in 1986, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison for terrorism and other charges, but pardoned and released the same year. The statements of admission he made to the
Sandinista
The Sandinista National Liberation Front ( es, Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional, FSLN) is a Socialism, socialist political party in Nicaragua. Its members are called Sandinistas () in both English and Spanish. The party is named after ...
government resulted in a controversy in the U.S. government, after the
Reagan administration
Ronald Reagan's tenure as the 40th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1981, and ended on January 20, 1989. Reagan, a Republican from California, took office following a landslide victory over D ...
denied any connection to him.
Personal life
Eugene Hasenfus was born on January 22, 1941. In 1986, he lived in
Marinette, Wisconsin
Marinette is a city in and the county seat of Marinette County, Wisconsin, United States. It is located on the south bank of the Menominee River, at its mouth at Green Bay, part of Lake Michigan; to the north is Stephenson Island, part of the ...
.
The U.S. army described him as having joined the
Marine Corps
Marines, or naval infantry, are typically a military force trained to operate in littoral zones in support of naval operations. Historically, tasks undertaken by marines have included helping maintain discipline and order aboard the ship (refle ...
in May 1960 and having spent five years in the corps before receiving an
honorable discharge
A military discharge is given when a member of the armed forces is released from their obligation to serve. Each country's military has different types of discharge. They are generally based on whether the persons completed their training and th ...
.
At the time of his capture, he was married to Sally Hasenfus. He had a brother named William.
Contra scandal
Capture
On October 5, 1986, Hasenfus was aboard a
Fairchild Fairchild may refer to:
Organizations
* Fairchild Aerial Surveys, operated in cooperation with a subsidiary of Fairey Aviation Company
* Fairchild Camera and Instrument
* List of Sherman Fairchild companies, "Fairchild" companies
* Fairchild Fash ...
C-123
The Fairchild C-123 Provider is an American military transport aircraft designed by Chase Aircraft and then built by Fairchild Aircraft for the U.S. Air Force. In addition to its USAF service, which included later service with the Air Force Rese ...
cargo plane, N4410F, when it was shot down over Nicaragua by the
Sandinista government with a Soviet
SA-7
The 9K32 Strela-2 (russian: Cтрела, "arrow"; NATO reporting name SA-7 Grail) is a light-weight, shoulder-fired, surface-to-air missile (or MANPADS) system. It is designed to target aircraft at low altitudes with passive infrared homing gui ...
surface-to-air missile.
The aircraft was brought down when it was approximately north of the border with Costa Rica, and a little over southeast of
Managua
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, Nicaragua's capital and largest city.
The plane had been flying weapons to the anti-Sandinista
Contra rebels,
including 50,000 rifle cartridges for the Soviet-made
AK-47
The AK-47, officially known as the ''Avtomat Kalashnikova'' (; also known as the Kalashnikov or just AK), is a gas operated, gas-operated assault rifle that is chambered for the 7.62×39mm cartridge. Developed in the Soviet Union by Russian s ...
, 60 collapsible AK-47s, nearly as many
RPG-7
The RPG-7 (russian: link=no, РПГ-7, Ручной Противотанковый Гранатомёт, Ruchnoy Protivotankoviy Granatomyot) is a portable, reusable, unguided, shoulder-launched, anti-tank, rocket-propelled grenade launcher. ...
's, and 150 pairs of jungle boots. Three members of the flight crew were killed: Hasenfus was the only survivor.
The two pilots and a Nicaraguan radio operator died in the crash.
Hasenfus had been wearing a parachute, unusual for
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
(CIA) operatives at the time.
Hasenfus managed to dive out of the open cargo hatch of the plane after it was hit by the Nicaraguan missile; he was later captured while sleeping in a makeshift hammock made from his parachute.
CIA links
After he was captured by the Nicaraguan government, he stated at a press conference that he had previously dropped supplies to CIA agents in Southeast Asia, and that flights into Nicaragua were directly supervised by the CIA.
His statement also included his recruitment by a friend in the CIA, an operation based in
Ilopango
Ilopango is a town in the San Salvador department of El Salvador. It is a few miles east of the nation's capital, San Salvador. It is located near Lake Ilopango, the country's largest lake at 72 square kilometers.
Overview
El Salvador's se ...
airbase in
El Salvador
El Salvador (; , meaning " The Saviour"), officially the Republic of El Salvador ( es, República de El Salvador), is a country in Central America. It is bordered on the northeast by Honduras, on the northwest by Guatemala, and on the south b ...
, supported by U.S. army colonel
James Steele.
The CIA and the
U.S. government of Ronald Reagan denied any connection with the flight, though they said they supported any civilian effort to support the Contras.
U.S. Secretary of State
The United States secretary of state is a member of the executive branch of the federal government of the United States and the head of the U.S. Department of State. The office holder is one of the highest ranking members of the president's Ca ...
George Shultz
George Pratt Shultz (; December 13, 1920February 6, 2021) was an American economist, businessman, diplomat and statesman. He served in various positions under two different Republican presidents and is one of the only two persons to have held fou ...
stated that the plane had been paid for by private operators, and that none of the men on it had any connection to the U.S. government.
Hasenfus later repudiated his statement, saying that he was unaware if his fellow workers were employed by the CIA, and that he had only heard rumors to that effect. The men in question,
Max Gomez Max Gomez, widely known as "Dr. Max", has been the medical correspondent/senior health editor alternately for the flagship television stations WNBC and WCBS-TV in New York City.
Formative years
Born in Havana, Cuba, Gomez graduated cum laude from ...
and
Ramon Medina, were Cuban Americans. The CIA had at the time been legally forbidden by the U.S. Congress from helping the Contras. Gomez and Medina had been identified as people who had helped organize covert arms supplies to the Contras.
Soon after his capture he said that the two men were friends of then-vice-President of the U.S.
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker BushSince around 2000, he has been usually called George H. W. Bush, Bush Senior, Bush 41 or Bush the Elder to distinguish him from his eldest son, George W. Bush, who served as the 43rd president from 2001 to 2009; pr ...
, but later retracted this statement as well, saying he was not sure. Hasenfus was charged with "terrorism, conspiracy and disturbing public security".
Hasenfus stated that he was sure, however, that the operation to supply the Contras with weapons, named Enterprise, was ultimately supervised by the U.S. government.
The capture of Hasenfus provided direct evidence of a link between the Contras, and the U.S. government and the Reagan White house; documents found on the dead men linked them to
Oliver North
Oliver Laurence North (born October 7, 1943) is an American political commentator, television host, military historian, author, and retired United States Marine Corps lieutenant colonel.
A veteran of the Vietnam War, North was a National Secu ...
.
Sentencing and controversy
Hasenfus was tried in Nicaragua, and on November 15, 1986, sentenced to 30 years in prison for terrorism and other charges.
His wife Sally made a plea to Nicaraguan president
Daniel Ortega
José Daniel Ortega Saavedra (; born 11 November 1945) is a Nicaraguans, Nicaraguan revolutionary and politician serving as President of Nicaragua since 2007. Previously he was leader of Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990, first as coordinator of the ...
for clemency.
Nicaraguan defense minister
Humberto Ortega
General Humberto Ortega Saavedra (born January 10, 1947 in Managua) is a Nicaraguan military leader, often self-called leading Latin American revolutionary strategist, and published writer. He was Minister of Defense between the victory of the ...
stated later that the sentence was not directed at Hasenfus himself, but toward the "irrational, unjust policy" of the U.S. government.
On December 17, 1986, Hasenfus was pardoned and released by the Nicaraguan government, at the request of U.S. Senator
Christopher Dodd
Christopher John Dodd (born May 27, 1944) is an American lobbyist, lawyer, and Democratic Party politician who served as a United States senator from Connecticut from 1981 to 2011. Dodd is the longest-serving senator in Connecticut's history. ...
.
Hasenfus subsequently unsuccessfully sued US Air Force officer
Richard Secord
Major General Richard Vernon Secord, Retired (born July 6, 1932), is a United States Air Force officer with a notable career in covert operations. Early in his military service, he was a member of the first U.S. aviation detachment sent to the ...
(involved with organizing weapons shipments to the Contras),
Albert Hakim Albert A. Hakim (July 16, 1936 - April 25, 2003) was an Iranian-American businessman and a figure in the Iran-Contra affair.
Born into a Jewish Iranian family, Hakim attended California Polytechnic State University, California Polytechnic Institute ...
,
Southern Air Transport
Southern Air Transport (SAT) (1947–1998), based in Miami, Florida, was a cargo airline best known as a front company for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) (1960–1973) and for its crucial role in the Iran-Contra scandal in the m ...
and Corporate Air Services over issues relating to his capture and trial. The controversy over the flight led
U.S. House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they ...
Speaker
Thomas P. O'Neill
Thomas Phillip "Tip" O'Neill Jr. (December 9, 1912 – January 5, 1994) was an American politician who served as the List of speakers of the United States House of Representatives, 47th speaker of the United States House of Representatives fro ...
to launch an investigation into the flight.
The U.S. press generally believed that there was more to the story of Hasenfus than the Reagan administration had admitted; according to scholar Scott Armstrong, this had the effect of making them more skeptical of the U.S. government's initial denial of the weapons-for-hostages deal during the
Iran-Contra affair.
[
]
Afterwards
Hasenfus continued living in Wisconsin afterwards. In the 2000s he was repeatedly arrested for indecent exposure
Indecent exposure is the deliberate public exposure by a person of a portion of their body in a manner contrary to local standards of appropriate behavior. Laws and social attitudes regarding indecent exposure vary significantly in different ...
. After violating the terms of his probation by exposing himself in a Wal-Mart
Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores from the United States, headquarter ...
parking lot in Marinette in 2005, he was imprisoned for several months at the Green Bay Correctional Institution
Green Bay Correctional Institution (GBCI) is an adult male maximum-security correctional facility operated by the Wisconsin Department of Corrections Division of Adult Institutions in Allouez, Wisconsin. The prison is located along the east bank ...
. He was released on the 19th anniversary of his release by Nicaragua.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hasenfus, Eugene
1941 births
Living people
American people imprisoned abroad
American people convicted of spying for the United States
Iran–Contra affair
People from Florida
People from Marinette, Wisconsin
Recipients of Nicaraguan presidential pardons
People of the Nicaraguan Revolution
United States Marines