Former CIA spy branded a traitor wants to clear his name: Edwin Wilson is out to prove he was set up

Former CIA spy branded a traitor wants to clear his name
Like a story in a spy novel, Edwin Wilson is out to prove he was set up

Edwin Wilson began this quest from a solitary-confinement cell, where he wrote letters seeking top-secret documents to show that his own government betrayed him.

The notorious ex-spy once traveled the world, gathering intelligence while playing the role of global businessman. He later was tied to shipping a planeload of explosives to Libya, sending him to prison for decades.

He was hurtling into history as one of this nation's most infamous traitors until three years ago -- when a federal judge concluded he'd been buried with the help of government lies.

Now 78 and paroled, Wilson works in his Seattle office, a scrupulously tidy room in his attorney's high-rise building, to prove he didn't earn the spectacular fall from skilled CIA agent to despised federal prisoner.

He studies his documents over cup after cup of black coffee and charts his latest mission: a federal lawsuit against the high-ranking people who helped lock him away.

"The bottom line is I want to clear my name," Wilson said. "My situation hasn't been explained."

It could be the most difficult task of his movielike life. In books about his downfall, he is the villain: a ruthless renegade who left the CIA and made himself rich by selling arms and training terrorists for Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.

And though he's made headway on new appeals, he remains convicted of some grim crimes, including shipping several guns to Libya and plotting to kill prosecutors and witnesses.

But three years ago, a federal judge in Texas threw out a major conviction -- that Wilson conspired to ship 20 tons of a powerful plastic explosive known as C-4 to Libya in 1977 -- and blasted the government for covering up the truth.

Wilson had finally gotten documents to help support the claim he had made all along: That despite his 1971 retirement, the CIA was still secretly using him to gather intelligence and knew about many of his activities in Libya.

The government had denied it for years. His attorney, Steve Berman, said the CIA didn't want to be publicly connected to anything it had authorized Wilson to do, so it simply "hung him out to dry."

The people Wilson is suing -- former officials in the U.S. Attorney's Office, the Justice Department and the CIA, including two men who are now federal judges -- contend they can't be held liable for doing their jobs, even if his rights were violated.

Wilson spent 22 years in prison. He was freed two years ago. Now the Edmonds man, once labeled a terrorist, "death merchant" and even "Great Gatsby of the spook world," is determined to reclaim his fortune and his name.

The CIA defense

Although metal-rimmed glasses and arching creases now frame his eyes, the 6-foot-4 former espionage agent with Idaho farm-boy roots looks nearly the same as he did when he was locked away in 1982.

Lifting weights and walking a mile on the treadmill each morning at an Edmonds gym not far from the apartment he now rents from his brother keep him fit. When he heads to his office before dawn each morning, he usually puts on a tie.

Boxes of documents line his office walls. He spent months building an index so he could quickly reference any subject: 168 alphabetized files that start with "A-bomb" -- the one he tried to keep the Libyans from getting, he said.

They include CIA papers, U.S. attorney memos, news articles and his hard-won lists of contacts he'd had with the agency after he officially retired. Many are carefully highlighted. More than one he calls "a smoking gun."

Wilson began his battle to get the documents while he was locked in a notoriously harsh federal prison in Marion, Ill. Clanking away at a rickety typewriter, he made formal requests to the CIA, the Justice Department and other agencies.

He has always maintained that the CIA knew about his profitable business dealings in Libya -- contracts to provide things such as parachutes, land-mine clearing and basic military training -- and had encouraged him to gain the trust of Libyan officials for intelligence purposes.

Wilson said the CIA even gave him a list of 30 Soviet weapons and other military gear and asked him to get samples from the Libyans.

As for the charges, Wilson admits he agreed to give several guns to Libyan intelligence officers. He denies knowing that a subcontractor he'd used occasionally was going to send the explosives.

"As soon as I found out they shipped that stuff in there, I notified the agency," he said.

And he's insistent that none of the C-4 has ever been traced to any terrorism; he said he understood it was for use in oil fields, not some nefarious purpose.

But in his 1983 trial on the explosives charges, prosecutors shot down his "CIA defense" with a sworn statement from Charles Briggs, then the agency's executive director. It said that apart from one exception, Wilson "was not asked or requested, directly or indirectly, to perform or provide any service" after he left the CIA.

The statement was apparently a key piece of evidence for jurors. They deliberated for a day, asked to have the statement read to them again -- then found Wilson guilty.

Richter scale of evil

Berman, a nationally known Seattle litigator who has taken on Big Tobacco and Enron, was initially skeptical of the case. It sounded like "a story out of some spy novel or something," he said.

He first heard about Wilson's situation from a law professor at the University of Washington, where someone spotted Wilson's classified ad seeking legal help.

Berman looked up the 2003 opinion overturning Wilson's conviction and had "never read a decision that was so condemning of the government," he said.

U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes found that about two dozen government lawyers were involved in hiding information from Wilson's defense attorney, presenting Briggs' false statement and refusing to come clean about it later.

In his blistering opinion, Hughes noted that the CIA had more than 80 contacts with Wilson after he left the agency, which, among other things, had used him to "trade weapons or explosives for sophisticated Soviet military equipment -- like MiG-25 fighters, tanks, missiles and ocean mines -- with Libya."

At one point, a CIA agent had even discussed with Wilson that "sending tons -- yes, tons -- of explosives to a hostile power could be authorized" if the U.S. got good enough information for it, the judge wrote.

Berman said the documentation would have made a huge difference in Wilson's criminal trials. Instead, he said, the government hid the information and gave jurors a sworn statement that was a lie.

"What I'm concerned about is that our highest government officials would knowingly fabricate evidence to keep this guy put away," Berman said. "I think every citizen in the United States would be hugely concerned. ... It's off the Richter scale in terms of evil."

Wilson said he's not bitter. But it hurts to be called a traitor, and he maintains that he was in Libya for one reason only: to serve his government by helping the CIA.

"God, I was risking my neck for these people, and they tried to shoot me while I was trying to survive," he said.

"I was doing it for them. If they hadn't walked away from me, I wouldn't have ever been convicted."

Lawsuit a 'desperate move'

Lawrence Barcella, a former assistant U.S. attorney, spent years investigating Wilson and helped put him away. He's the dedicated lawman in "Manhunt: The Incredible Pursuit of a CIA Agent Turned Terrorist" by Peter Maas, a best-selling author who dubbed Wilson the Great Gatsby of spies.

Now a target of Wilson's lawsuit, Barcella was reluctant to discuss the case but said, "Suffice it to say, a lot of his allegations have improved with age."

The Washington, D.C., lawyer -- one of the people Wilson was convicted of trying to have killed as he sat in prison in the early 1980s -- said he still worries about the explosives.

He said most were ruined because "thankfully, the Libyans didn't know much about storing them." But every time he hears about an explosion somewhere, he said, he still wonders.

Barcella's attorney, Melinda Sarafa, said Wilson's claims miss the heart of the matter because he has "never identified any witness or document showing he had authorization to make that shipment" of explosives to Libya.

Daniel Hedges, another former prosecutor whom Wilson is suing, acknowledged that "things have come to light" about Wilson's CIA connections, but he said he didn't know if it would have changed anything.

"I'm not going to second-guess what I did 20 years ago," he said. "We didn't find out about any exculpatory evidence until considerably after the trial."

Wilson's lawsuit names five other former assistant U.S. attorneys -- Stephen Trott, now a judge on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals; D. Lowell Jensen, now a federal judge in California; James Powers, retired; Mark Richard, who still works for the Justice Department; and Theodore Greenberg, now senior counsel for the World Bank -- and ex-CIA official Briggs.

In court documents, Briggs' attorneys contend he believed the affidavit he signed was true "and would not have signed it otherwise."

Greenberg also believed the statement was accurate and still does, said his attorney, Robert Bennett. He said Greenberg had "an unblemished reputation" as a 29-year prosecutor and called Wilson's lawsuit "a desperate move."

"These allegations are frivolous and baseless," Bennett said. "This is a man who put a contract out to murder a United States attorney."

Long hit list alleged

The murder plot that Wilson was ultimately convicted of only reinforced what he had become in the public eye.

While he was behind bars in New York, another inmate told investigators Wilson had a list of people he wanted to have killed, including Barcella, another prosecutor and some witnesses.

In a sting, an undercover FBI agent posed as a "hit man" and later testified that Wilson's son gave him a $10,000 down payment for the crimes. Wilson's son also was indicted, but the charges were dismissed.

Wilson denies trying to kill anyone and said the money was part of a business deal involving the sale of three airplanes. He contends the government framed him to make sure he stayed in prison and didn't further sully the CIA.

Now there may be evidence that the FBI agent who helped build the case against Wilson is corrupt; he was charged in New York earlier this year for allegations that he helped the mob commit murders.

Houston attorney David Adler, who got Wilson's explosives case vacated in Houston and is now fighting his Virginia gun-shipping conviction, suggested government misconduct may have factored into the murder-plot case, too.

"What are the odds that after violating his rights in Virginia and Houston, they decided to play by the rules in New York?" he asked.

Adler was appointed to help Wilson years ago. At first, he said, it was clear that Wilson didn't trust him -- he figured Adler, an ex-CIA officer himself, would just help the government continue covering the truth.

"In the beginning, he was a very difficult character," Adler said. "But if you look at what he'd been through, it was sort of justifiable." He now considers Wilson "the most persevering person I've ever met."

Wilson's 71-year-old brother, Bob, said he believes Wilson was "really railroaded" after putting his life on the line for his country, although he's sure he'll eventually be exonerated.

"He's very outgoing and assertive, you might say. You wouldn't want to not do what he says," he said, chuckling. "He just doesn't take 'no' for an answer."

'Patriotic thing to do'

If Wilson ever thought he was invincible as a wheeler and dealer overseas, he evidently no longer does. He now talks about the toll of aging and arthritis.

He lost everything long ago: The lavish home on a 2,500-acre Virginia farm that he said he and his wife were able to buy after a series of successful real estate deals. The job that gave him the same rush a firefighter feels when the station bell sounds. His family.

His wife grew frustrated with the time he spent overseas and divorced him, he said. He keeps in touch with one son, but the one who was entangled in the murder-for-hire case hasn't spoken to him since.

"They'll execute you just like that, sure, but that was the job," he said. "You get your job done."

He walked out of prison Sept. 15, 2004. On each anniversary of his release, he's had dinner at Canlis.

The man who was once a master of pretending is certain that many still-classified documents further detail his CIA work. Much of it he won't talk about, but he insists he served his government honorably until the prison doors closed behind him.

"I can't think of one thing I did that I have any guilt about," he said. "I didn't hurt anybody. I didn't get anyone killed."

He said he did things he knows might seem absurd: continuing to work for the CIA for free. Shelling out his own money, earned through his various business deals, to gather intelligence.

Once, he said, he agreed to sell 5,000 M-16 machine guns to Libya so that he could help the CIA find out which countries were selling them on the black market -- a contract he never intended to fulfill and didn't, costing him $1.1 million.

"In retrospect, it seems a little stupid," he said, a lopsided smile crossing his face. "It was a patriotic thing to do. But nobody believes that."

He has countless tales about his undercover work -- guarding the ultrasecret U-2 spy plane project, keeping tabs on foreign labor unions, running a CIA-created maritime business to conceal various agency operations abroad. He said he retired from the CIA only because he had to. His cover had been blown. If given the chance, he'd still be handling covert operations in perilous locales on the other side of the world.

"It was a hell of a satisfaction," he said. "Assuming I'd get out of there alive."

THE SPY'S SAGA: KEY MOMENTS

Convicted of conspiring to ship explosives to Libya, then of trying to have two prosecutors and six witnesses killed. Prison sentences total more than 50 years.

Wilson files federal lawsuit in Houston against government officials who helped put him in prison. Trial date has not been set.

I think I saw a movie preview for this guy and the CIA last Sunday (while waiting to watch Flags of Our Fathers).

The movie, like so many during the Bush era, was decidedly anti- anti. America, CIA, you name it.

Actors included some of the same highlighted in Team America (which I use to identify the anti-Americans).

As I recall, an Edwin Wilson plays a central role in this movie I probably won't be seeing. Afterall, 'Flags' was maybe the 3rd movie I have paid to see all year. And I was disappointed with the first two.

Another point.

Leave it to the media to try and resurrect a bad guy. They have done it with the Rosenburg's, Tokyo Rose, too many to name. And all American enemies.

I used to think that Edwin Wilson was not much different thant Aldrich Ames, but this information certainly forces anyone to take a second look at what happened, and I can't help but note that the grand jury (keeping in mind that old saying about how a prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich if necessary) was convened in 1979, towards the end of (*gasp* of surprise) the CARTER Administration.

It would seem that the die was cast for Wilson's conviction nearly 3 years before the Reagan Administration came to Washington.

I point that out because IF this story gets any legs on it, you can bet the rent that the lamestream media will try to pin the blame on the Reagan Administration, on conservatives, etc.

If Attorney General Alberto VO5 wanted to do something really useful, he would direct the Justice Department to literally turn over anything and everything requested by Wilson's attorney and to assist in determining if he was unlawfully convicted.

It has the ring of truth, and I'd like to know the whole story.

>>In a sting, an undercover FBI agent posed as a "hit man" and later testified that Wilson's son gave him a $10,000 down payment for the crimes. Wilson's son also was indicted, but the charges were dismissed.

Wilson denies trying to kill anyone and said the money was part of a business deal involving the sale of three airplanes. He contends the government framed him to make sure he stayed in prison and didn't further sully the CIA.

Now there may be evidence that the FBI agent who helped build the case against Wilson is corrupt; he was charged in New York earlier this year for allegations that he helped the mob commit murders.<<

It certainly looks like he was working inside a group of highly honorable people.

I'd lay odds there is truth in his story about being innocent.

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		Scott Eklund / P-I
	Former CIA spy Edwin Wilson, 78, spent 22 years in prison before he was freed in 2004 after a judge found that government officials hid evidence and lied in order to convict him of treason.



		The Washington Post / 1982
	Edwin Wilson, center, is escorted from the U.S. Courthouse in Alexandria, Va., by U.S. marshals in 1982, when he was convicted of illegally shipping guns to Libya.


		Scott Eklund / P-I
	Lining the walls of Wilson's office are boxes of documents he hopes to use to clear his name.



		Scott Eklund / P-I
	Seattle attorney Steve Berman is helping former CIA spy Edwin Wilson sue those who "hung him out to dry." "What I'm concerned about is that our highest government officials would knowingly fabricate evidence to keep this guy put away."