European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - July 30, 1988, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Saturday july 30, 1988 the stars and stripes Page 9 afternoon drives in Southern France usually Are summertime pleasures but some Days the wind can whip your car from Lane to Lane the skies Darken to funeral gloom and Thunder is heard orchestrating a bolting the Road cacophony Over the horizon. This afternoon drive was climaxed by a lightning strike that seemed to Bolt the Road ahead. At night it is easy to catch lightning using tripod and an open shutter but it is very Chancy to catch a Bolt during Daylight especially Riding in a  and stripes photographer Gus Schuettler opened his camera s shutter for a few seconds with the Lens closed to f 22 for this Lucky catch. North sought funds diversion agent says Washington a a . Drug enforcement official says former White House staffer Oliver l. North suggest Din 1984 that $1.5 million designated for a drug sting operation be diverted to the nicaraguan contras instead. Ron Caffrey now in charge of the at Lanta office of the drug enforcement administration told a House panel thurs Day the Aba rejected the idea. Caffrey said he told North the suggestion Wouldhave compromised the chief operative in one of the Agency s most significant undercover operations. As it turned out according to Caffre Yand other Dea witnesses the investigation was compromised anyway an closed prematurely several weeks later when details were leaked to the Washington times. The hearing was the first in a series bythe judiciary subcommittee on crime which is trying to learn whether Reagan administration officials condoned drug smuggling and other criminal activities to further its Central american policy especially winning Aid for the Contra re Bels. Chairman William j. Hughes d-n.j.,said the panel has discovered Many Many instances of persons in or associated with. Elements of our govern ment attempting to convert to divert and to subvert the criminal Justice pro  North who has been indicted in the separate diversion of millions of Dollar from the administration s Iran arms sales to the contras figured prominently in thursday s testimony. The testimony focused on a 1984 sting operation in which the Dea used convicted drug Pilot Barry Seal to make con tact with the colombian cocaine Cartel then operating in Nicaragua and purported nicaraguan government offi Cial Federico Vaughn. Hughes later said the committee has doubts about whether Vaughn was in fact part of the government. Nonetheless four Dea witnesses said North was interested in exposing an alleged involvement of the marxist Nicara Guan government in drug smuggling so the Reagan administration could win a upcoming congressional vote on Contra Aid. Caffrey who was in charge of the de cocaine desk in 1984, said he briefed North on the undercover operation inmate june or Early july 1984, after Barry Seal had brought cocaine Back from Nicaragua to the United states. Seal at the time was functioning As Adea operative hoping his cooperation would bring him a lenient sentence. Caffrey said he told North that Thedea planned to Send Seal Back to Nicaragua to make a $1.5 million payment for the drugs he brought Back with the Money to be split Between the Colombia drug Kingpins in Nicaragua and Nicara Guan officials. Col. North asked Why we could land the plane outside Managua and turn the Money Over to the contras Caffrey said. The Dea official said he responded that such a plan would jeopardize Seal who had won the Trust of the Colombia drug Cartel and of Vaughn identified by the Dea witnesses As an official of the nicaraguan Interior ministry. Most of the hearing entered on the news leak to the Washington times which published its Story on the Seal operation july 17, 1984. Seal then became a government witness rather than an operative but was machine gunned to death in Early 1986 after declining Feder Al Protection. Caffrey said when he briefed North on the operation before the Story was leaked the then National Security coun cil staffer asked when the operation could go  he added that North did indicate Tome there was a vote coming up on an appropriation Bill to Aid the contras. Told him Public disclosure would come from the . Attorney or the attorney general. But we had a lot of goals left in the investigation and did not want to Compromise it. Ernst Jacobsen the Dea undercover agent who directed Seal said that follow ing the leak i heard from my Superior the leak came from an aide in the White  still an undercover agent Jacobsen testified from behind a screen. A former top Dea official sex assist ant administrator Frank Monastero testified i thought the leak came from the White House because of the Contra vote that was coming  Monastero told the subcommittee that the Day the news Story appeared an irate North called him to deny that he was responsible for the leak. North he said accused the Dea of telling a reporter that North was the source of the information. He called to say he did not leak the information and the proof was the facts in the Story were not accurate Monas Tero said. My response was that s the Standard Way to cover your tracks i did t accept  pages from North s diary released bythe subcommittee show the former White House staffer made frequent references to the drug operation in the weeks before the leak. And the diary shows he was aware of photographs from the investigation showing cocaine being loaded at a nicaraguan Airstrip. Jacobsen said that shortly before the leak a Cia agent in Miami told him the spy Agency planned to leak the material to the news Media to suggest sandinista involvement in drug smuggling