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Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00788R000100330001-5 ‘An Interview In Mexican Jail With a Terrorist This nation’s most wanted terror- ist, William (No Hands) Morales, is directing a guerrilla war against the United States from a Mexican prison cell. Intelligence sources believe his main target will be the Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles. My associate Jon Lee Anderson recently spent a day with Morales in the “maximuny security, highly dan- gerous wing” of the Mexican prison Reclusorio Norte. Morales is a deceptively relaxed, soft-spoken man—congenial in re- pose, intense when animated—who routinely can give orders for shoot- ings and bombings. He learned his combat tactics on the streets of east Harlem, where he grew up; he picked up his politics from the radical movements of the 1960s. Now 34, he has developed a smol- dering hostility toward the society that spawned him, an animus so deep that he is willing to sacrifice his life ina futile struggle against the USS. power structure. Morales is startling to look at. His chin and mouth were disfigured by a BALTIMORE SPECIAL EDITION -- TERRORISM -- 26 JUNE 1984 WASHINGTON POST 29 May 1984 bomb that blew up in his face six years ago. The sarip: accident, left him with two stumps for arms, each with a single, grotesque fing a hand should be." °°") 2 The terrorist leader talked inces- santly about “imperalist domination” by the western world. Yet his lan- guage was more street talk than Marxist dialectic. He left no doubt that he was more interested in ac- tion than theory. Police reports confirm that Mo- rales has managed to find plenty of action. As a leader of the Puerto Ri- can radical group known as FALN, he has been involved in shootouts and bombings. He made a daring es- cape in 1979 from a fourth-floor win- dow of a New York prison hospital. The FBI has warned any agents who * may encounter him: “Morales should be considered armed, dangerous and an escape risk.” . In an earlier report, I cited intel- ligence warnings that. the FALN has set up mobile camps just across the Mexican border to train terrorists ~ for attacks on the Los Angeles Olympics and that Morales may be delivered into the custody of leftist authorities in the Tijuana area. This would put him as close to Los An- geles as he could get and still be in . Mexico. . Morales has been locked up for killing a Mexican policeman in a gun battle; other charges could keep him SUN 7 June 1984 Pg. behind bars the rest of his life. Yet he ‘seemed confident that he would get out. He hinted to “Anderson. is” the’, fitst. reporter dered by the PAIN 8 meet Mo- qT be The screening process was elab- orate, beginning with a contact on the U.S.-Mexican border. Anderson had to make two trips to Mexico City, where he was put in touch with a Trotskyite politician. Next he was cleared by a left-wing activist who once ran for president of Mexico. Finally, Anderson was taken to the prison by a woman who is one of Morales’ lawyers: FALN literature portrays Morales as a “political prisoner.” He said all FALN members take an oath that, if imprisoned, they will declare them- selves political prisoners. This means they can’t request parole, which would imply that their crimes were nonpolitical. Morales talked about his escape from U.S. custody and his subse- quent capture in Mexico. He was approached, he said, by the U.S. Embassy. “Can you believe,” he de- manded, “they asked to see me when | first got here and offered to help me?” He wes incredulous. Footnote: Morales made it’ clear that his agreement to see my report- er did not mean he liked my column, 4 ‘Journalist’ is linked to Costa Rican blast SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (AP) — The mysterious “Danish journalist” who vanished after a bomb explosion killed three persons at a May 30 news confer- ence was in Central America for two months before the incident, Costa Rican immigration sources said yesterday. A Swedish journalist who met him three weeks before the explosion told police the man spoke “very bad Danish, but very good Spanish.” . The man called himself Per Anker Hansen, said he was a Danish reporter and was using a Danish passport. The Danish consul general, Palle Paaby, said yesterday, “We do not know who he is.” Mr. Paaby said the passport had been stolen in 1980. The real Per Anker Hansen told reporters in Copen- hagen he has never been to Central America. . Costa Rican authorities on Monday issued an international arrest warrant for him. The bomb exploded shortly after Eden Pastora, leader of a Nicaraguan anti-Sandinista. rebel group . here, opened a news conference on May 30 at a guerrilla camp in Nicaragua, just across the San Juan River from Costa Rica. Mr. Pastora was among more than two dozen people injured. The Costa Rican immigration sources, who asked to remain anony- mous, said an incomplete computer rec- ord showed that a man using the stolen Passport traveled by air between San Jose and Mexico City, but does not show’ whether he was going to or from Costa Rica. The passport also showed that he traveled to or from Honduras by air on March 26 and went to Panama overland on March 28, . ‘It also showed that he, crossed into. Costa Rica by land at the Pena Blanca checkpoint April 14 and crossed over to Nicaragua via Pena Blanca on April 19. 3 Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : cia8bP96-00788R000100330001-5