SC Nominee has an Iran-Contra connection?

Channell had years of experience in raising funds for conservative political causes. As a result, he was asked by White House officials early in 1985 to help organize a ``Nicaraguan Refugee Fund Dinner'' to raise money for the contra cause. Channell became disenchanted with the way the dinner-planning had been conducted, and in April 1985 he approached White House political director Edward Rollins to offer his assistance in promoting President Reagan's contra policies.

He was referred to White House political aide John Roberts, who in turn directed him to Miller, a private public relations consultant who ran a firm known as International Business Communications (IBC).3 According to Channell, Roberts told him that Miller and his partner Frank Gomez ``are the White House -- outside the White House.''

Nicaraguan Refugee Fundraiser Spent Little on Refugees
Associated Press, Sec. Washington News 09-02-1985
By ROBERT PARRY

WASHINGTON

Nicaraguan refugees got only a tiny fraction of the $219,525 taken in on their behalf at an April fund-raising dinner featuring a speech by President Reagan, according to an internal audit. Consultants received over half the money.

The Nicaraguan Refugee Fund, which received direct White House help in arranging the April 15 event, said costs totaled $218,376, including $116,938 in consulting fees and $71,163 to feed the nearly 700 people at the $250- to $500-a-plate dinner.

From the dinner and other revenues, the fund spent $3,000 to ship relief supplies to refugees in Central America.

The audit follows an earlier disclosure that the refugee fund was started a year ago with the secret involvement of the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, or FDN, the largest U.S.-backed rebel army fighting to overthrow Nicaragua's leftist government. But fund officials say no money has gone to the rebels.

According to the fund's internal audit, the dinner's consultant costs included $13,000 for ''fundraising''; $9,688 for ''publicity''; $61,250 for ''consultant termination fees''; and $33,000 for ''consultant fees.''

Michael Schoor, a fund attorney, said the chief reason the dinner did not raise significant amounts for the refugees was the failure of many people to live up to their donation commitments.

''If the outstanding pledges came in, it would be a marvelous success,'' Schoor said, estimating that those pledges total about $80,000.

Joseph Luman, the fund's general counsel, said, ''we're disappointed in the numbers'' in the draft audit, made available to The Associated Press. He refused to provide additional details about the consultant payments or other fund expenses.

Others involved with the dinner said the largest consultant payment - $50,000 - went to Miner and Fraser Public Affairs Inc. for its work organizing the fund and helping arrange the dinner.

According to an AP story in June, two sources, who insisted on anonymity, said the refugee fund was started a year ago through a secret agreement between the Miner and Fraser firm and the Nicaraguan Development Council, the FDN's Washington-based corporate arm.

Edie Fraser, president of Miner and Fraser, confirmed the existence of the agreement, but said the arrangement was handled personally by Alvaro Rizo, a Nicaraguan exile who was working at Miner and Fraser at the time.

Both Rizo, a former diplomat for Nicaragua's late dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle, and Bosco Matamoros, the FDN's Washington spokesman, denied any formal ties between the refugee fund and the the rebel's development council. But Rizo called relations between the groups ''very friendly.''

Rizo also confirmed Monday that he had been a director of the FDN's development council, but resigned last year before starting the fund, where he has served as a director and executive vice president.

According to a July 3, 1984 letter, obtained by the AP, the Miner and Fraser firm urged FDN director Alfonso Callejas to create ''a fund-raising campaign for Nicaraguan refugees'' that would use the FDN's development council as the ''umbrella organization to receive all donations.''

In an interview, Callejas said he discussed the plan with Rizo and told him that the FDN was ''not the proper vehicle'' for the fund raising. But Callejas refused to say if the campaign was later carried out indirectly by the FDN's development council, using the Nicaraguan Refugee Fund.

In addition, the refugee fund was incorporated by the same attorney, Sidney J. Butler, who set up the FDN's development council. Butler said he considered the two groups ''interrelated'' but declined further comment.

Creation of the Nicaraguan Refugee Fund last Sept. 10 followed another fund-raising effort secretly organized by the FDN, using a Panamanian-based corporation, the Human Development Foundation, according to an internal document and a former FDN director, Edgar Chamorro.

Chamorro, who was ousted as an FDN director last November, said the FDN used the Human Development Foundation to place fund-raising appeals for Nicaraguan refugees in major American newspapers in July 1984. But he said those ads were designed less to raise money than to create the impression of private aid going to the rebels and thus conceal CIA efforts to ''launder'' funds for the FDN through foreign governments.

A July 15, 1984 ledger sheet for the Human Development Foundation, obtained by the AP, shows Marco A. Zeledon, another of the FDN's seven directors, depositing $12,000 on May 31, 1984, to pay for the ads. Payments included $3,000 sent to Matamoros, the FDN's Washington spokesman.

CIA spokeswoman Kathy Pherson denied Chamorro's claim of CIA involvement in the fund raising. Such involvement apparently would violate presidential directives barring the agency from influencing U.S. public opinion.

The private fund-raising efforts came after Congress refused Reagan's request for more CIA funds to support the Nicaraguan rebels. From 1981 to last year, the CIA spent an estimated $80 million supplying and directing the rebels. This summer, Congress approved $27 million in non-lethal aid to the rebels, but barred a CIA role.

In addressing the Nicaraguan Refugee Fund dinner in April, Reagan denounced Nicaragua's 6-year-old leftist government as ''a communist dictatorship'' that drove more than 250,000 Nicaraguans out of the country. He praised those at the dinner for helping the refugees.

''While the world was turning away, you were helping,'' Reagan said. ''People like you are America at its best.''

According to the audit, the refugee fund spent $3,000 to ship food and clothing, previously collected in Miami, to Nicaraguan refugees in Costa Rica. The audit showed an additional $3,187 going to pay for the travel of fund officials to Central America to oversee the supplies' transfer to two Costa Rican groups.

The audit also shows that a separate account maintained by the fund put $10,000 toward $51,271 in medical care given to a wounded Nicaraguan girl, Maritia Herrara, after she was brought to Washington to appear at the dinner. Fund officials have said they intend to organize future fundraising appeals around the girl. Overall, the audit shows the fund to be $91,308 in debt for the first six months of this year, including $30,000 in unpaid legal fees and the balance of Miritia Herrara's hospital bill.