Honduran Sting

One of the mysteries concerning U.S. aid to the contras has been why Washington for a time funneled supplies through Ilopango air base in El Salvador rather than through Honduras, the rebels' sanctuary. Administration officials now say the move enabled the U.S. to dodge a sting.

The story begins in July 1985, when Congress authorized $27 million in "humanitarian" aid (food, clothing, medicine) for the contras. The State Department, which administered the account, has never been able to satisfy Congress on what happened to the money. One reason, officials told TIME, is that sizable chunks were used for bribes to Honduran military officials to let the supplies reach the contras.

The Hondurans, however, wanted more. Early last year Honduran military men secretly bought millions of dollars' worth of weapons. The plan was to sell them -- at wildly inflated prices -- to the CIA for delivery to the contras after the U.S. resumed open, legal military aid to the Nicaraguan rebels. Buy, said the Hondurans, or we will not let supplies of any kind reach the contras. At that point, the supply operation was shifted to Ilopango. There it remained until a mini-coup in the Honduran armed forces last November threw out officials who were accused of fiscal misbehavior.

But Ilopango was also the jumping-off point for the supposedly private shipments of weapons to the contras that had been organized with the assistance of Oliver North of the National Security Council. Robert Deumling, the State Department official in charge of delivering the humanitarian supplies, reportedly got in trouble with North for resisting efforts to mix the two operations. Says one Administration official: "Ollie acted as though he had the power to get Deumling fired." Deumling denies being pressured. He concedes that planes carrying humanitarian supplies to the contras sometimes delivered cargoes of weapons as well but contends that that happened with the approval of congressional intelligence-oversight committees.