Sep 29, 2022 - Sale 2615

Sale 2615 - Lot 155

Unsold
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
(IRAN-CONTRA.) Claude Chauffard. Letter from a French mercenary arrested in Costa Rica for aiding the Nicaraguan Contra rebels. Autograph Letter, signed only as "Nasty Reb-Frog," addressed to "Dear sir." 4 pages, 11 x 8 1/2 inches; mailing folds, small tape repair. With original envelope addressed to a business in East Wareham, MA, and other related papers. San José, Nicaragua, 15 July 1986
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The Iran-Contra Affair was perhaps the biggest political scandal of the 1980s. The Reagan administration wanted to offer support to the Contras, a Nicaraguan rebel group, but were forbidden from sending funds by an act of Congress. Members of the administration instead set up an elaborate secret operation, selling weapons to Iran (itself the subject of an arms embargo) and using the funds to pay international soldiers of fortune to train the Contra rebels. This being the 1980s, cocaine smuggling also played a prominent role. The scheme started to unravel in 1986 as reports leaked to the press.

One of the many Iran-Contra exposés was a 31 May 1987 Los Angeles Times Magazine article by Michael Fessier, "An American Contra," which described the five mercenaries hired to run a Contra training base in Costa Rica. One of them was "a big, angry, black-bearded Frenchman, an ex-paratrooper named Claude (Frenchy) Chauffard who hated communists and wore a 'Kill Em All and Let God Sort It Out Later' T-shirt." After leading a cross-border raid on a Nicaraguan military base, the five mercenaries were arrested in April 1985 and charged with violating Costa Rican neutrality. Their shadowy American sponsors disappeared, and the angry, confused mercenaries went to trial. As Fessier described it, "Chauffard, whose size, temper and unintelligibility had prompted local journalists to nickname him 'The Monster Idiot,' lunged at [fellow defendant] Glibbery when the sentence was read. 'You communist pig!' he screamed, lifting a small Costa Rican to whom he was cuffed, swinging him like a puppy on a rope." He was sentenced to five years in prison in October 1986.

Offered here is a long and characteristically angry letter written by Chauffard to an American contact while awaiting trial. It names many of the key players in the scandal. He starts with his fellow mercenary and defendant, "the dirty dog Peter Glibbery. . . . This young fucker had just begun to get involved with some unamericans, you know the identity, but let's remain you their respective fucking names: [Senator John] Kerry from Mass., who, for sure, is acting in the name of [Ted] Kennedy for '88 elections. . . . The whole game has been set up in view to trap a guy so named Oliver North who is working as the right hand of Admiral Pointdexter. The Democrats might, I say, might have more or less some suspicion about the role played by G.B. [Vice President George Bush?] and Marlboro cow-boy [Reagan?] into a possible campaign . . . operated down in C.A. [Central America] on the both borders of Nicaragua. . . . We were used as scapegoats to cover up something, and even perhaps one another stuff even bigger which perhaps was canceled at the latest minute; something concerning the U.S. Embassy and its ambassador in Costa Rica. . . . Send me down here a nice letter . . . explaining Mr. Asshole [Glibbery?] that he was put back in prison to protect him first against himself, second against the commies and the Democrats. . . . He is just a young motherboy who got trapped in something too tough for him, so he lost his mind." He adds that "two journalists from the States have been trying to see me, but until now I managed to avoid em. They are respectively Steve Kurkjian and Bob Healy [of the Boston Globe]. They left the accompanying message on my cot." He signed simply "Huge kisses, Nasty Reb-Frog." Also included are:

The referenced note addressed to Claude Chauffard by journalist Bob Healey, asking to give him a call.

"Destruction of the Contras' Costa Rican Front." An unsigned, undated, and unpublished 11-page photocopy of a dot-matrix printout, written in support of the Costa Rica Contra operation.

A subpoena issued to James Keyes of Wareham, MA for a Congressional hearing, 8 September 1988.

"Affidavit of Daniel P. Sheehan." A critical report on the Iran-Contra affair issued by the Christic Institute in 1987; and other published reference material.