Simulated terror

The next time a major terrorism incident occurs, readers should keep this notarized statement in mind. The author of the affidavit is one Robert M. Hayes, who says that he became involved in covert operations in the early 1970s. Along the way, he encountered an American operative using the name John Joseph Michaels (a.k.a. "Joe Sibley") who proposed a novel scheme: Blowing up a Catholic church and the U.S. Consulate in Sao Paolo, Brazil, in order to place blame on Cuba.

I eventually returned to Lakeland in 1981 and buried the Brazilian incident and my other intelligence activities in my past. But Michaels returned to haunt me late last year when I read a November 16, 1987 Time magazine article titled "The Misadventures of el Patron." The article detailed the activities of John Hull, an American expatriate operating a farm on Costa Rica's northern border with Nicaragua. Hull was identified in the article and in previous testimony by himself and others as a CIA agent whose farm was used to transship weapons and other supplies to the Contra rebels opposing the Sandinista government in Nicaragua.

Although he has consistently denied it, Hull also has been accused in court testimony and published accounts of participation with others in an aborted plot to bomb the U.S. embassy in San Juan, Costa Rica and to blame the bombing on agents of the Sandinista government.

The article was accompanied by a color photograph of Hull, which I immediately identified as John Joseph Michaels.

Hull became notorious in 1980s. He was the most prominent of the American "famers" who bought land on the Costa Rica/Nicaragua border.

Yes, I know that a claim is not necessarily true simply because it appears in an affadavit. I ask merely that you read the text. Come to your own conclusions regarding Hayes' credibility and the accuracy of his photo-identification. And keep this tale in mind next time something goes boom.