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In 1987 [Roy, no relation to the other] Reagan and Fuchs came up with a plan to literally steal airplanes from the federal
government which had a noble sounding stated purpose. According to documents filed in
an Arizona federal criminal prosecution, which led to the conviction of the two for fraud
and theft in Oct. 1997, they said they were going to save the nation's forests.
The scheme was simple. All around the country the U.S. Forest Service had relied for
years on the services of private contractors who owned, operated and maintained air
tankers used to drop water and retardant on forest fires. The problem was that by 1987
most of the Korean War and WW II vintage aircraft then in use were wearing out. They
were not capable of carrying the loads necessary and spare parts were hard to find. If
Reagan and Fuchs got their way, which they did, the Forest Service would obtain surplus
C-130s, Navy P-3 Orion anti-sub planes and even jet powered A-10 Warthogs, used as
tank killers during desert Storm, and "trade" them to private contractors on a one-for-one
basis and place the aging aircraft in museums. The government would then hire the planes
as needed to fight fires and the title to the aircraft would pass into private hands.
In reality, according to a lawsuit filed by whistleblower Gary Eitel under the False Claims
Act, (a little known civil war era statute that allows citizens to file suit on behalf of the
government), Evergreen Air, as a behind the scenes player, was using Reagan in a
scheme to move as many as 50 C-130s into "private" hands for use in a variety of covert
operations. These included drug smuggling and the direct enrichment of a number of
private contractors including Reagan and at least five private companies in California,
Arizona and Wyoming. Eitel has been quoted in news sources as saying that one purpose
of the conspiracy was to defraud even the CIA, which would help obtain the aircraft.
However, in an interview with From The Wilderness he acknowledged that Evergreen Air
had card carrying CIA officers on the property and had admitted being a CIA contractor.
"What happened also was that Reagan was going to put about one out of every three
C-130s back in his own pocket for his own use."
From The Wilderness has obtained a copy of a Dec. 1989 memorandum to Forest Service
Associate Chief George Leonard from Assistant General Counsel Kenneth Cohen, which
seems to show that the Forest Service knew it was having problems with the scheme all
along. Listing requirements from the Federal Property Management Regulations Cohen
laid out three specific requirements which had to be met before the transfer could be
deemed legal. First the transfer had to result in a greater return for the government. That
could hardly be the case if a C-130 valued at $3.5 million were traded for a junk aircraft
valued as low as $19,000 which was inoperable. Second, aircraft and airframe structural
components were specifically prohibited from transfer. Third, the items to be exchanged
could not have been acquired for the purpose of transfer and they had to have been used
by the Forest Service for a period of one year before being transferred out of Forest
Service inventory.
In spite of the fact that none of the above conditions were met the transfers continued
under the control of Fuchs and Reagan through approximately 1989 when the last of the
C-130's were placed in the hands of five private air contractors. Out of 35 aircraft
transferred into private hands twenty-eight were actually re-titled. Some changed hands
several times before turning up in the control of drug dealers in Panama and Mexico.
Reagan and Fuchs tried to justify their actions by stating that the C-130s, obtained from
Air Force storage facilities and active Air Reserve and National Guard units were historic
planes themselves and obsolete. That is hard to justify since the Air Force currently has
the C-130 slated for active duty until the year 2015.
Last year, in the Tucson criminal trial of Reagan and Fuchs, which was prompted by
Eitel's 1994 lawsuit, three Air Force generals testified that when they approved of the
transfer to the Forest Service they believed the titles would remain with the Forest
Service as they approved the transfer out of military inventory."
Did the Forest Service know or suspect that the planes, under CIA control, might be used
for drug dealing? In the same memorandum Kenneth Cohen states, "Apparently, DoD
[Department of Defense] thinks that by having the Forest Service as the intermediary, if
any future aircraft are used in drug smuggling, the Forest Service and not DoD will suffer
the adverse publicity."
He was right.
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