Missing $10M contra donation located

Press, 14 May 1987, Page 10

Missing $10M contra donation located

Rv staff rnrresnondent

TOM BRIDGMAN

Washington The fascination has faded in Gary Hart’s sudden decline and fall. Attention in the American capital has now been able to fully turn to the Irancontra hearings. For those expecting high courtroom drama and fresh revelations about the secret dealings of the Reagan powerplayers in Iran and Central America, the theatre so far has been basically dull but worthy. The brightest spot in general public interest came yesterday with the discovery of where the missing SUSIO million donation from the Sultan of Brunei to the Nicaraguan contra rebels went.

The whereabouts of the cash, solicited by the Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America, Elliott Abrams, and paid after a trip to the tiny oilrich nation by the Secretary of State, George Shultz, has always been one of the mysteries of

the Iran-contra affair. The explanation, as detailed by Senator Daniel Inouye, chairman of the joint investigating committee, was that it wound up in the wrong Swiss bank account and the recipient withdrew the money.

The accidental beneficiary, who apparently got the windfall because of a mistaken transposition of bank account numbers by American officials, was a wealthy Swiss businessman married to a prominent doctor.

The Swiss gentleman was used to dealing in millions of dollars through having major shipping business interests so when the SUSIO million went into his account he used the cash to buy a certificate of deposit which has already earned him $U5253,000 in interest. The money has now been frozen by Swiss authorities and the bank involved, Credit Suisse, has filed criminal charges seeking the return of the funds.

Senator Inouye drily noted: “I suppose the question before us is, does the Senate select committee get a finders’ fee?” In terms of day-time soap opera, the televised hearings have been a ratings bomb.

Day after day last week the retired Air Force major-general, Richard Secord, coolly, and at times with restrained humour, held his ground as he answered questions about the intricate arms

shipments and money transfers between the parties involved in the shadowy dealings to do with hostages, Iran and the Nicaraguan contras.

He has been followed by President Reagan’s former White House national security adviser, Robert “Bud” Mcfarlane, who with slow, tortuous delivery and pained expression gives his complex evidence, expected to be completed today.

He is due to be followed by the current assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific, Dr Gaston Sigur, who formerly worked in a similar role on the National'Security Council Staff. If Mr Mcfarlane is dull television, Dr Sigur should be downright tedious. But appearances can be deceiving, and by the time the long summer of investigation comes to an end, from the evidence produced so far, the early impression of the whole operation being some rogue operation run out of the White House basement by fired National Security Council staffer “Ollie” North and his ideologue “Privatising” foreign policy cohorts will be shown to be far from the truth.

For at every turn the evidence is pointing to high-up complicity and the parties carrying out what they perceived to be the President’s will and direction, even if he or his spokesman vehemently deny that Mr Reagan engaged in any illegal activities.