Pubdate: Sat, 28 Apr 2001
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2001 The New York Times Company
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Christopher Marquis
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?172 (Peruvian Aircraft Shooting)

INQUIRY ON PERU LOOKS AT A C.I.A. CONTRACT

WASHINGTON, April 27 - With inquiries beginning into Peru's downing 
last week of a flight carrying American missionaries, Congressional 
officials say they are examining the role played by C.I.A. contract 
employees who worked for the Aviation Development Corporation of 
Montgomery, Ala.

There is no indication of wrongdoing by Aviation Development, and 
government officials said the three C.I.A. contract employees on 
board a surveillance plane tried to prevent the Peruvian military 
from shooting down the missionaries' plane, which was suspected of 
carrying drugs.

But some Congressional officials privately voiced discomfort that 
civilians could be detailed to such a delicate mission.

"They have a higher impression of their tactical and technical 
proficiency than they should," said one official, who asked not to be 
identified. "Not one person on that aircraft had a commission from 
the U.S. government to do what they were doing. No one took an oath 
to the Constitution. They were just businessmen."

American anti-narcotics officials have privately expressed similar 
doubts about the contractors. Some note that the Aviation Development 
crew had identified the missionary plane as suspect even though it 
was en route to Iquitos, Peru, rather than leaving that country's 
airspace.

The State Department announced today that it was sending a senior 
anti-narcotics official, Rand Beers, to Peru to lead a joint 
investigation with the authorities there. In Congress, intelligence 
committees are gathering information about the incident; a House 
Government Reform subcommittee has scheduled a hearing for Tuesday.

It is not clear whether Aviation Development, whose employees on the 
surveillance plane first identified the missionaries' plane as a 
potential d rug flight, worked exclusively for the C.I.A. Phone calls 
to the company's office at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery went 
unanswered this week, and calls to the home of its president, Lex 
Thistlethwaite, were not returned.

The authorities at Maxwell have allowed the company to operate out of 
a remote hangar at the base since 1997. But even the officials 
responsible for handling private contractors said they knew almost 
nothing about Aviation Development or its activities.

"If they're who I think they are, they've been here for two or three 
years," said Susan Smith, who is in charge of business operations. 
"My office has no relationship with them. The contract was written 
out of some organization in Washington, D.C."

The C.I.A. has long been known to set up front companies to mask its 
activities, especially in aviation. At their peak in the mid-1960's, 
companies that were wholly-owned subsidiaries of the agency and had 
such names as the Civil Air Transport Company, Air America and 
Intermountain Aviation employed as many as 20,000 people and operated 
about 200 planes, rivaling the size of Trans World Airlines.

Yet in recent years, American military and intelligence agencies have 
increasingly contracted workers from private companies. The practice 
allows federal officials to reduce the visibility of sensitive 
operations by substituting paid civilians for American troops or 
career intelligence officers.

In Colombia, for instance, where Congress has strictly limited the 
number of American troops and their activities, federal officials 
have hired DynCorp, an information technology and aviation giant, to 
conduct drug crop fumigation runs and ferry Colombian troops into 
conflict zones.

Unlike American military advisers, the contract workers in Colombia 
are not bound by lawmakers' orders to avoid combat.

The extent of the C.I.A.'s involvement with aviation companies became 
public in the mid-1980's, when longtime employees of agency-owned 
airlines applied for government pensions. The employees, who decades 
earlier had undertaken perilous missions to air-drop agents into 
China or supply the French at Dien Bien Phu, were dismayed when the 
government blocked their request on the grounds that they never 
officially worked for the C.I.A.

Then, in 1987, Eugene Hasenfus, a pilot who was shot down over 
Nicaragua while flying supplies to the American-backed contra rebels, 
filed suit against two airlines with C.I.A. connections: Corporate 
Air Services and Southern Air Transport. Mr. Hasenfus, who had flown 
for Air America, a C.I.A. airline, in Southeast Asia, sued the 
companies for negligence and fraud, all the while casting light on 
their ties to American intelligence.

Bill Harlow, a spokesman for the C.I.A., today declined to discuss 
the agency's relationship with Aviation Development. "We have no 
comment on the company involved and the contractors in this case," he 
said.

When Aviation Development first settled at Maxwell in 1997, it was 
greeted with considerable fanfare.

Mr. Thistlethwaite announced at the time that he had received a $10 
million Pentagon contract to test and evaluate several different 
airborne sensors, according to a news release. The company would use 
five Cessna Citation V twin-engine jet aircraft, he said.

Mr. Thistlethwaite, who said Aviation Development was his first 
company, delighted local officials by joining the Chamber of Commerce 
and pledging to employ about 45 people, with about a third hired 
locally.

Emory Folmar, the mayor of Montgomery at the time, said the 
completion of a 1,000-foot extension to Maxwell's runway had helped 
lure the company to the base.

That runway extension, which cost $5.7 million, had been advocated by 
Senator Richard C. Shelby, the Alabama Republican who has since 
become the chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, and 
Representative Terry Everett, a Republican who represents the 
Montgomery area.

Andrea Andrews, a spokeswoman for Mr. Shelby, confirmed his role in 
winning the runway improvement at Maxwell. But she said the senator 
had no ties to Aviation Development or to Mr. Thistlethwaite.
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MAP posted-by: Josh Sutcliffe